


And If I See You in the Daylight

by dannyPURO



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: A Whole Lot of Bread, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Enjolras Getting Himself Into Trouble, M/M, Masturbation, Miscommunication, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:27:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannyPURO/pseuds/dannyPURO
Summary: In which Grantaire just likes baking bread, Enjolras is not actually in the mob, and early morning is the best time to fall in love with somebody horribly, distressingly rapidly.AKA, the Bakery AU
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Joly/Bossuet Laigle/Musichetta
Comments: 91
Kudos: 493





	1. April

Grantaire likes baking bread. He honestly does. He likes waking up early and walking to the bakery in the dark, before the metro’s even running, when the streets are quiet and not _still,_ not really, but calmer, anyways. He likes the way he gets the kitchen to himself for an hour and a half, before Joly and Bossuet come in to help--he loves them, but there’s something to be said for the solitude. That’s _his_ hour and a half, from four to half five, which means that he gets to do what he wants.

What he _wants_ happens to be listening to some tasteful synthpop while he weighs out the dough, and that’s his business and within his rights. He’s still got an hour before Joly and Bossuet come in to do the specialty breads and the viennoiserie, and if they want to change the music then, they can. (They probably won’t--synthpop is a general favorite among them.)

Anyways. Bread.

Grantaire is glad that he doesn’t work in a bigger bakery, even if doing so might mean a heftier paycheck and a little less work. He would miss Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta, who owns the place and works the counter, and he would miss the bread. And that sounds stupid, only he’s pretty sure that if he worked in a bigger kitchen, one with all those machines that are so good at making bread that the baker hardly touches the dough, he’d be just a little bit sadder. And you’re not allowed to listen to Tainted Love in them, either, so…

So, yeah. He’s glad.

He actually likes the way his days go, now, Grantaire finds himself thinking as he pinches off a few grams of dough from the bit he’s weighing. It's new, still. And really, really nice, actually. Nothing really happens, and maybe he’s getting a little bit old, or something, but he likes that. He gets up early, showers, eats, walks to the bakery. He has his hour and a half to get as many baguettes into the ovens as he can before Joly and Bossuet stumble in, always a few minutes late but smiling bright and open, their arms linked together. They work, side by side, until Musichetta comes in at six thirty to check in on them and to lug the baskets of bread out to the front and to give Joly and Bossuet each a peck on the lips and Grantaire a kiss on the cheek. He keeps baking bread, keeps giving the guys a hand with the viennoiserie when they need it and taking over the till for Musichetta when she needs a quick break, until noon, when he clears his station and packs up his stuff and leaves. 

(Joly had asked, soft and private, when they’d first hired him two years ago, if he was _sure_ he didn’t want to come in a little bit later, _four is so early, even for us,_ but Grantaire had just shrugged and mumbled something about mornings and the lunch rush being hard and avoided the genuine question buried under there, and Joly hadn’t pressed the matter. Joly’s a great guy.)

Anyways, he’s happy. Happy enough for synthpop, even, which he definitely didn’t see as a possibility five years ago. Or three years ago. Or two.

Whatever, okay, he’s better now, and he’s weighing out bread dough at half past four in the morning, and-

And somebody is pounding really, really hard at the door. 

Shit.

Grantaire cuts the music.

Yeah, someone is definitely knocking, and yeah, it’s definitely still half past four, and yeah, that’s definitely not a _hey, are you guys open, can I buy some bread, please?_ knock.

God, he hates when stuff happens. 

He’s in the front of the bakery before he can even consider that maybe he should have brought a knife or something, or even just a phone to call the police, or-

There is a man at the door, looking about himself with the kind of nervous air that Grantaire knows to be cautious of, and he’s got one hand pressed against the door and the other cradled close against his chest, careful-like.

And he’s beautiful. Beautiful, really, with cheekbones to suffer indignities for and a jawline like it’s been fucking sculpted on and hair falling in loose curls about his face, falling against warm skin and over a nasty-looking bruise, and a fire in his eyes like Grantaire’s never seen, never. He-

He knocks on the door again, and he’s looking right at Grantaire, mouthing something, gesturing behind himself, and-

And Grantaire (idiot, idiot, idiot) opens the door.

The man stumbles inside, shuts the door behind him before Grantaire gets the chance. “Hello,” he says, as if he were a customer, and not a suspiciously-injured stranger begging to be let inside at half four in the morning.

“Hello,” says Grantaire.

“Thank you for letting me in,” he says, and he’s panting, ever so slightly. “May I hide behind the counter?”

“Are you going to rob me?” Grantaire asks. God, but this guy is fucking gorgeous--more so, even, here in the half-light.

The man shakes his head, glances behind himself out the plate glass. “Of course not.” (To be fair, Grantaire wouldn’t say that there’s anything particularly _obvious_ about this guy not being a robber, but whatever.) “Please, I hate to rush you, but-”

And then Grantaire sees, just in view of the window, a pair of men pause in the intersection of alley and street, and turn towards the street that the bakery is on, and he can’t be certain but he’s pretty sure that one of them has got a gun and that’s enough for him to- “Fuck, fuck, what the fuck,” Grantaire hisses, and he’s grabbing the guy and hauling him across the floor to the counter before he can think. “What the fuck?” He says again, once they’re both tucked behind the counter and out of sight.

He winces, rubs at his ankle. It looks swollen. “Thank you,” he says again, but there’s a tinge to it that wasn’t there before. Maybe because Grantaire just dragged him across a bakery on a sprained ankle. “I’m really sorry to intrude like this.”

“What the fuck?” Grantaire pokes his head up just in time to see the men walk past the window. He drops back down again, heart racing like it’s about to fucking give out or something. “What the _fuck?”_ His voice cracks a little, there, but it’s hardly his fault.

The man, the blond, hazards a peek above the counter. “I don’t think they saw me come in here,” he says.

“Oh,” Grantaire manages. He’s used to getting up before dawn, he likes it, but it is truly just too early for this to be happening. “Um. Good?”

A timer rings from the kitchen, jarring in the early-morning silence. The man jolts, looks to Grantaire in surprise. He seems, for the first time, to take in the apron, the flour down his front, the remnants of dough on his hands, the fact that Grantaire’s in a fucking bakery at half past four in the morning. “I- I didn’t mean to distract you,” he says, fast and a little less… _polished_ than he sounded before. “You must be really busy, working in a bakery is no joke, I hope I didn’t-”

Grantaire cautiously, slowly, gets to his feet. “No worries,” he says, and he shouldn’t mean it, but he does. 

“I-” The man cuts in and breaks off just as fast. He picks at the cuff of his pant leg, hands nervous and shaking, Grantaire is pretty sure. “I know you don’t- you don’t really have any reason to help me, but-” he shoots another glance out the window. The street is still clear. “I wouldn’t ask if I hadn’t hurt my ankle, honestly, but-”

Um.

“Um.” And come on, Grantaire knows this is a bad idea. Grantaire knows that he shouldn’t let a-

A-

Who is this guy, anyways? Why are there fucking… fucking men with _guns_ chasing him down an alley?

(God, is he in the mob or something? Fuck, fuck, he’s probably in the mob, he’s fucking terrifying enough to be in the mob. Mostly based off of bone structure, honestly, but that glint in his eye doesn’t really make Grantaire pin him as an accountant.)

And yet-

“You can wait in the kitchen with me,” he offers. “Until-” Until what, he doesn’t fucking know. God, this is _stupid._

“I just need to wait in here for my ride,” he breathes out. “That’s it, then I’ll be out of your hair. Thank you.”

Grantaire extends a hand to help him up. The timer is still buzzing. “No worries, man,” he says again. (He is worried.)

(Grantaire is also, he notes, as he pulls him to his feet just a little too hard--he’s light as anything, this guy, and the guy stumbles on his twisted ankle and they end up just a little too close--vaguely aroused.)

(Whatever, okay.)

Grantaire goes to take the bread out of the oven--it’s just the slightest bit dark, but time must be passing a little strangely, right now, because what had felt like minutes since the buzzer rang must have been a lot more akin to a spare handful of seconds.

Well, so much the better, then.

He takes a deep breath and shoots a glance over to the folding chair in the corner, where-

Oh, Christ, Lord.

He, under the fluorescent kitchen lighting, is something to behold, something somehow more divine, more stunning than before. His hair is golden, bright and tumbling and mussed by sweat, and his skin is golden and fine to match, and he looks up from his phone to meet Grantaire’s gaze and-

(Grantaire chokes on his own fucking spit-)

And he smiles, ever-so-faintly, almost shyly, cocks his head. There are shadows, dark and insistent, under his eyes; they detract from nothing at all.

He is far more reminiscent of a statue, well-wrought in bronze, than he is of a man. Grantaire has a work of art, here in the corner of his kitchen, smiling at him. He has some obscure Grecian deity, there beside the viennoiserie countertop, where Musichetta usually sits on her breaks, and-

And he looks back down at his phone, brow furrowed, and Grantaire sucks in a deep breath and forces his hands to move, to dump the baguettes into the basket, to get the next batch into the oven, to keep weighing out dough. 

Grantaire, for the sake of the bread and of his sanity, does his best to ignore the fact that he has a fucking deity in his-

Wait. No. What he probably has, he scolds himself, is a fucking _mobster_ or something in his kitchen, and the fact that he is the most beautiful person Grantaire has ever seen does not invalidate that.

He shoves another tray of baguettes into the oven a little more forcibly than necessary. 

The man in the corner is talking into his cell phone--voice low, muffled by the hand he’s got in front of his mouth. He’s still holding his wrist close to his chest--Grantaire hopes it isn’t hurt too bad.

The clock on the wall reads a quarter to five. He’s running behind, lagging, but it’s fine. He’ll be fine. He just needs to work a little bit faster. Which--fine. He can do that. Really. He just needs to get this batch shaped before the one before comes out, and-

“I have someone coming to pick me up,” says the statue. Grantaire glances over his shoulder. He’s got one leg pulled up on the seat of the chair, and his cheek rests, lazy, against his knee. He looks… _tired._ Exhausted. He’s eyeing the bread, still hot and fresh in the basket. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes, he says.”

“Oh,” Grantaire says, for lack of- of- of _functional fucking thought._ “Okay.”

“Okay,” the man opens his mouth, as if to say something else, but that’s all that comes of it, so Grantaire turns his gaze back to the dough.

He really, really tries not to keep looking back behind him. It’s really fucking hard.

The kitchen, from then on out, is silent, or as silent as it can ever be. That makes it easier, really, not to sneak a glance backwards. And so it’s not until twenty-so minutes later, when Grantaire’s made up nearly all of his lost ground, that he is jolted out of the steady rhythm of it all by a knock at the door.

Oh, God.

He shoots a panicked look back at the man, searching for _some_ acknowledgement that yes, actually, that’s his ride and not a bunch of guys with guns looking for trouble, only-

Only, he’s been quiet for good reason. He’s slumped up against the counter, asleep, his head cocked back at an angle that makes Grantaire’s neck ache in sympathy, his mouth (God, his fucking _mouth)_ just open, his cheek pressed to the harsh jut of the countertop. Grantaire takes a moment just to take it all in. There’s no harm in it, he figures--this guy is out cold, and he’ll never see him again, anyways, and Grantaire is never, ever going to be able to forget this fucking face. So, yeah, he looks him over before he moves to check the door. Shoot him. (Please don’t shoot him.)

There is another knock. At least, Grantaire figures, it is considerably more polite than what he would expect the knock of a vengeful mobster to sound like. Not like he’s an expert, or anything. 

He answers the door.

On the other side is a polite-looking man in a sweater vest. Grantaire figures he’s safe for now. “Hello?” Grantaire hazards.

“Hello,” says the man. (Grantaire really hopes he isn’t about to be, like, shot by a guy in a fucking _sweater vest._ ) “Am I at the right address?”

That’s the question, isn’t it? “Are you looking for, like,” Grantaire clears his throat. “A very, um,” (don’t say beautiful, please don’t say beautiful) “Beautiful man?” Fuck. “With, um, hair?”

He can’t quite be sure, but he thinks the man bites back a smile. “Yeah, that would be the one.” He extends a hand. “Combeferre,” he offers. 

Grantaire lets some of the tension drop from his shoulders. Some. “Grantaire,” he says, which was probably not his brightest idea, when he shakes his hand. “He’s-” he gestures to the kitchen. God, but he’s still a little shaken. “He fell asleep. I didn’t know whether I should wake him up, or what, so I-” he shrugs. 

Combeferre follows him into the kitchen. The man--the statue--is still asleep, just as he was when Grantaire left to answer the door, and Combeferre huffs a laugh, lays a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” he says, and it’s surprisingly… _soft,_ almost. Grantaire isn’t sure who he thought this guy was before, who he thought he was to the- the _statue,_ the Apollo in his fucking kitchen, but whatever he thought isn’t quite matching up, now. “Hey,” he says again, and he stirs. “I heard you wanted an Uber, or something.” He’s smiling.

And the Apollo, with all the grace and majesty of any man waking up from an unintended nap, huffs a breath, blinks his eyes open, and scrubs a hand across his face. “Ferre,” he says--breathless, relieved. And then he glances over at Grantaire, blinks, and freezes. “I-”

Grantaire flushes, goes to speak--he feels oddly caught out, as though this Apollo could have possibly known just how long he spent fucking _looking_ \--but as he does, he is cut off, all unintentional.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Apollo blurts out. “I apologize, I was just so tired, and it’s warm in here, and-”

Combeferre elbows him, almost-subtle. He stops talking.

“‘S fine,” Grantaire manages. It’s all that could be reasonably expected of him, honestly.

“Thank you,” says Apollo. Now that he is marginally more awake, his eyes are big and wide and earnest. “Thank you for letting me in.”

Grantaire grunts a vague acknowledgement and turns to take the tray of baguettes out of the oven before he makes even more of an ass of himself. 

Combeferre clears his throat. “Right,” he says. “I’ll be taking this one with me, then.” Grantaire tries not to look up from the counter, but he does anyways, and he watches Combeferre tug Apollo’s arm over his shoulders and haul him to his feet. “Thanks again, Grantaire.”

And then they’re turning to leave, and-

“Wait!” Grantaire hears himself say. 

They wait.

Fuck.

“Um.” Grantaire didn’t really think this through very much, didn’t really think about anything but the way Apollo had eyed the bread so hungrily, didn’t think about the fact that the bread is warm and he _knows_ it’s good and God, but he’s beautiful, and- 

He holds out a baguette--not straight from the oven, but from the batch before. Still warm, but not too hot to hold. “For, you know-” he stops himself, flushes, shrugs.

Apollo, somehow, reaches out and takes it. “Thank you,” he says.

Grantaire clears his throat and very carefully looks away. 

Behind him, he can hear the two of them start to make their way out. Apollo’s footsteps are uneven, stilted. (Grantaire wonders if his ankle is sprained or if it’s broken. And then he stops himself, because that’s a question he just won’t get the answer to.)

And then- “Bye,” says the statue, says the beauty, says the potential fucking _criminal,_ and Grantaire finds his gaze drawn back.

He hazards a tiny wave. He has dough on his hands. 

They leave.

Joly and Bossuet come in, rather predictably, at a handful of minutes past five thirty. They’re a little rumpled, the both of them, and Joly is either wearing Bossuet’s shirt or Bossuet has been wearing Joly’s shirt for just about as long as Grantaire’s known them. They bustle into the kitchen with such energy, such _brightness_ , and they always do that, they’re always like that, but this time, it makes Grantaire startle so hard he nearly drops the tray he’s holding.

He recovers it, but not fast enough and not subtle enough to stop them from pausing, there in the doorway to the kitchen. “Morning,” he says, going for _normal._ He’s not quite sure he pulls it off.

Bossuet takes Joly’s jacket to hang them both up by the door. “Morning,” he says, while Joly eyes him critically enough for the both of them--they’re efficient like that.

Grantaire pulled their dough from the fridge a little while ago--he doesn’t know what else they want from him. And yet-

And yet, he watches helplessly as Joly takes in the messy kitchen, the way that Grantaire is not nearly so far behind as he was earlier but he’s still clearly _lagging_ , the way he can’t quite make himself calm down, not all the way. “Are you feeling okay?” Joly asks, soft and low.

And, here’s the thing--three years ago, Grantaire would have brushed something like that off on instinct, harsh and crass. Three years ago, he would have ended the conversation right there, no matter how much he liked Joly and Bossuet. 

Only, it’s not three years ago, and he’s trying, he really is. It’s just that he’s already behind schedule and Joly and Bossuet came in late and they should really start working on that dough and- “Can I-” he clears his throat. “Can I tell you later?”

Bossuet, back from hanging jackets, claps him on the shoulder. “Course,” he answers for the both of them. Joly nods in unnecessary affirmation.

“Cool,” Grantaire says, and he starts moving again, scoring the bread with hands that are barely even trembling. “Yeah, cool.”

Joly and Bossuet get started on the viennoiserie; Joly on the croissants, Bossuet on the pains au chocolat.

It isn’t until Musichetta comes in (early, thank the Lord) and has started bringing everything out to the front that Grantaire gathers himself, brushes the flour off of his hands, and says, “So, like, hypothetically.”

They all pause. Fuck, and Grantaire had been going for casual.

“Hypothetically,” he continues. “If I were to, like, harbor a potential fugitive, for example, how bad do you guys think that would be?”

There is a longer hunk of silence than Grantaire would prefer.

“Like,” he expands. “Like, in the bakery?”

Joly’s eyes widen to such a degree that Grantaire fears for his heart. Bossuet curls an arm around him, glances about the kitchen in a manner that is not surreptitious in the least. “Grantaire,” Joly hisses. “Is there a murderer in the kitchen?”

He shakes his head frantically. God, this is difficult. “No!” he says. “No, hypothetically, it would have been this morning? Before you all got here? And then he left?”

There is another long, long beat of silence.

“Grantaire,” Musichetta says, and she sets the basket she’s holding down slow. “Did you harbor a fugitive?”

“Um.” He takes a deep breath.

They wait.

“Um,” he tries again. “I didn’t mean to?”

“Grantaire,” she says again. It’s a warning, but like, a concerned one. He gets those a lot. 

He drops his hands into the pockets of his apron. “Okay, so, basically, somebody knocked on the door and I wasn’t going to answer it, I’m not an idiot, only,” he forces himself to breathe. “Only there was this guy at the door, and he-I swear to God, he was the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, and I didn’t mean to answer the door but he looked really nervous and I did and then I saw-” another breath. “I swear, there were two men following him, and they had guns, and I didn’t know what to do so I let him hide behind the counter until they passed and, um, he had a sprained ankle, so I said he could wait in the kitchen until his ride came? And he fell asleep? And then this guy came and he said his name was Combeferre and he woke him up and they both left?” He hazards a glance back up at Musichetta, in particular--it’s her bakery, after all. 

She’s got a hand at her temple, but she’s not getting angry, or anything, so he figures he’s good. Joly and Bossuet are just staring at him. “So,” she starts, then tries again. “So you don’t actually know who he was.”

“No,” he says. “But he- He looked like a fucking statue. Like Apollo.” He’s pretty sure they all sigh, but that’s all the information he has right now. Oh, and- “And, um, I thought he might have been in the mob or something?”

“Christ.” Musichetta says it, but they all three nod in agreement, Grantaire included.

“Sorry?” he offers.

“You’re lucky you’re such a good baker, man,” she says, but there’s no heat behind it. 

Bossuet wraps him up in a hug from behind. “You’re okay, though?” he asks.

He lets himself lean into it, wills his heart, racing from even recounting the events, to calm. “Mm-hm.”

Joly ruffles his hair. “You’re good,” he says, and it’s just confirmation, but it helps. 

He really, really owes a lot to these guys.

“Alright,” Musichetta says, picking the basket back up. “We’ll deal with it as it comes. Back to work?”

They get back to work. 

Nobody brings up the morning’s events until later, once they’ve opened, and Musichetta says, all conspiratorial, when Grantaire goes to bring out an armful of baguettes- “So, he was beautiful, huh?”

Grantaire flushes, looks around. There’s nobody in the shop, surely there’s no harm in- “Like a Greek fucking God,” he says, just soft enough. “Seriously, I can’t even- I can’t-”

She laughs, shakes her head with a smile. “You’re something else, R.”

“If you’d seen him,” he calls over his shoulder as he goes back to the kitchen. “You’d be more sympathetic to my case.”

She goes to make a retort, then, he can tell, but a customer opens the door and he slinks off while she helps them.

When he gets home, Grantaire grabs his sketchbook and sits down on his sofa and lets himself draw. Lets himself draw bold curls and tired eyes and fine features and sharp jawlines; lets himself draw the angle of his Apollo’s head tipped back against the counter. There’s no harm in it--it’s his memory to preserve, anyways. So he draws him.

He’s surprised he remembers so well, actually, remembers the slope of his nose and the cut of his jaw--or maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise at all. He can’t seem to rid his head of him, after all. 

And so he sketches him out, and firms up some of the lines, and he steps back, and-

It’s not enough. It’s accurate, sure--down to the muss of his hair and the line between his eyebrows--but it’s not enough. It does nothing to capture the bronze of his skin, or the way the light hit his curls, and-

He’s been working for so long, already, but this is _important,_ God only knows why, so he grabs his paints and the canvas he’d prepped a week or so before and _paints._

That night, Grantaire jerks off, fast and desperate, to the half-finished portrait in his studio and the lingering feeling of having his eyes on him. He’s wine-buzzed, careless--but then again, he’s often wine-buzzed and always careless--and the heart-pounding anxiety from the morning is all but gone, and it’s left behind something fucking _strong._

He comes into a handful of tissues with a grunt of _Apollo_ and a string of curses, then goes to the bathroom to flush the evidence and wash his hands. 

When he leaves, shaking water off his hands, the picture is still fucking _watching him_. 

He goes to bed and tries not to think of what he, the statue, the deity, might be named. It isn’t helping him any, and yet-

And yet.

That night, he dreams of curls beneath his hands and eyes with a spark behind them.


	2. May

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing is-  
> The thing is, Grantaire can’t get him out of his fucking head. His Apollo, that is.   
> Not that he’s been thinking of him as his, or anything. (Only, he has.) And not that he’s been seriously, genuinely calling him that. (Only, he has, but only to himself.)  
> Whatever.

The thing is-

The thing is-

The thing is, Grantaire can’t get him out of his  _ fucking  _ head. His Apollo, that is. 

Not that he’s been thinking of him as  _ his,  _ or anything. (Only, he has.) And not that he’s been seriously, genuinely calling him that. (Only, he has, but only to himself.)

Whatever.

But he can’t get him out of his head, and it’s seriously messing with him. Sure, painting a full-sized portrait of him probably didn’t help to rid his head of him, but, like… he couldn’t help that. That’s not his fault. 

(He’s actually done more than just that painting, to be frank. He’s been drawing Apollo a lot. There’s something about his face, and his hands, and whenever Grantaire tries to draw anything else, lately, it just kind of… ends up being him, anyways. And the portrait turned out really well, actually--he’d be proud of it, if only it weren’t evidence to the fact that he’s kind of a creep.)

But whatever. It’s not like he’s obsessed, or anything. 

And in any case, it’s been, like, a month. Things are normal. Grantaire wakes up before dawn, he goes to work, he bakes bread to his synthpop playlist, he hangs out with Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta some evenings. He paints. He drinks wine, but not too much. He takes home leftover bread and viennoiserie and eats too much of it, but it tastes good, so who cares.

He is, he will admit, maybe a little distracted. Just on Tuesday, he’d forgotten to score the last two baguettes on the sheet, and they’d swollen up so horribly in the oven that Joly and Bossuet had laughed their asses off when they came out. And the previous Wednesday, he’d forgotten to take the viennoiserie dough out of the fridge before Joly and Bossuet arrived, and they’d had to wait and help out with the baguettes until it was workable. And the week before that, he’d-

Well, that time, he just forgot his phone in the bakery, but it was very stressful.

In any case--he is off his game.

“Grantaire,” Bossuet says, one morning. “You’re off your game, man.”

Grantaire winces from where he’s running his hand under the sink. He’d scorched it, getting a tray out of the oven--misjudged the angle and scraped a knuckle along the hot grate. “I know,” he grunts. “Can you take the batch out for me? Please?”

Bossuet frowns, sets his rolling pin down. “Course,” he says, and Joly does it. “Are you okay?”

He prods at the burn, winces. Ouch. “Yeah, yeah, you know,” he swallows. “You know me. A little fucked in the head, right now, that’s all.” He can hear Joly gathering the baguettes, dumping them into the basket--God bless him.

“Is it-” Joly lowers his voice, though they’re not open yet--Musichetta isn’t even in. “Is it, you know,  _ him?” _

“No!” He dries his hands, grabs the first aid kit from the cupboard. He can feel two sets of eyes searing into his back. “What?”

Bossuet shrugs. “It’s just-” 

He groans. “Fine, yes, okay, I’m a liar, I can’t get him out of my fucking head and it’s messing with my bread and I don’t even know his name.” It all comes out in a rush--far more than he intended, but, well, isn’t that how it always goes, with him?

Joly bites back a snicker, but composes himself, fast as anything. “Do you want to, like, do anything about it?” 

Grantaire pauses, frowns. “Do something?”

“Yeah,” he says. He’s watching Grantaire clumsily apply a band-aid. “Like, do you think you want to try to find him again? He seemed polite enough, right? Maybe he…” he fades off with a shrug.

For a moment, he lets himself imagine it. Finding him on Facebook, maybe, or running into him on the street, or at a bar, or, fuck, on Tinder or something. They could go on an awkward little date and Grantaire would pay, even, and he would know his name. Only-

“No.” He throws the paper from the band-aid away. “Bad idea.”

Bossuet frowns, then, makes as if as to protest, and Grantaire cuts him off.

“One,” he says, and this is the one that stings, a little. “Did you miss the part where he is literally the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life? Beautiful people do not want to date people like me.” His voice cracks, just a little, towards the end. He can’t help it.

“Grantaire,” Joly starts, and oh, he knows that tone, and he knows this lecture. “You are a talented, lovely, kind man, and you-”

“Two,” he says, before Joly can get any further. “He’s probably, like, in the mob, or something, remember?”

They both pause. 

Joly frowns. “Oh, yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah,” echoes Bossuet.

Grantaire gets back to baking. 

“But Grantaire, honestly,” Joly says, and then it’s the start of his  _ you are good enough, people like you, you’ve made so much progress, you’re hot in a rugged way,  _ speech, so Grantaire does his best to concentrate on the dough and not think about how Apollo would definitely  _ not _ find him “hot in a rugged way.” He doesn’t even think that that’s a real thing.

That has never stopped Joly in the past, though, and it doesn’t stop him now.

That afternoon, Grantaire makes a decision as he eats a misshapen pain aux raisins. This weird, creepy pining really isn’t getting him anywhere--he’s known that, of course, but still. He makes a decision. He, he decides, is simply not going to think about Apollo anymore. And he won’t draw him, either. 

It doesn’t work.

Shocker.

He jerks off to him, again, and feels kind of bad about it.

Grantaire starts another painting of Apollo, because he’s a fool. It, too, is beautiful. It’s smaller, more reasonable; maybe he’ll put it up on his wall. Nobody would have to know how weird that would be.

He burns a whole tray of baguettes, on Thursday, and swears so loud he shocks himself. 

And then-

And then, on Friday, he’s walking to work, and it’s still dark out, still nighttime, and he rounds the corner, and-

And somebody is standing at the door.

His breath catches in his throat. Because that’s not- That couldn’t be-

That’s his Apollo, right there, with a package under his arm, and he’s barely visible in the dark but Grantaire would recognize him anywhere. 

He approaches. (He wonders, distantly, if he ought to be frightened--he can’t quite muster much fear, anyways, not past a vague wash of it.)

Apollo looks up, deigns to meet his gaze. “Grantaire,” he says, once they are nearly close enough to touch. His voice is quiet. “Good morning.”

“Apollo,” he hears himself say. It slips out, treacherous, before he can stop it, but it earns him nothing but a furrowed brow. “You-”

“I really do apologize for asking,” he says, and for a moment, Grantaire feels a flash of something akin to fear. “But-” he clears his throat, looks around, and, just like that, it’s gone. “Could I leave something here with you? And impose, just for a bit? You really have no obligation, but I- I think they know where I live, and I can’t risk-”

Grantaire looks down at the package under his arm--upon further inspection, it isn’t a package at all, but a pair of manila folders, packed full, and a shipping envelope, all rubber-banded together, and a weathered notepad. 

It doesn’t look particularly dangerous.

It doesn’t look particularly dangerous, and his Apollo is still fucking  _ looking  _ at him, and-

“Okay,” he says. He unlocks the door.

“Thank you,” Apollo says, and he follows him inside.

Grantaire flicks the lights on--just the essentials, and the ones in the kitchen. Not the display, just yet. “How’s your ankle? And, um, your wrist?” It’s a feeble attempt at conversation, but he can’t do any better.

He starts. “Oh, um,” he rolls his wrist absently. “Combeferre, he’s a doctor, he looked at my ankle and it turned out to be a sprain, and it wasn’t even too bad, so that’s… that’s healed, by now. And my wrist wasn’t even sprained at all, the bone was just bruised, so that hurt a lot but it healed fast.”

“Good, good,” Grantaire says. He doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands. “Could’ve been worse, I guess.”

“It could have,” Apollo echoes, and Grantaire ushers him over to the chair in the kitchen, again. 

They stare at one another for a moment too long. It’s horribly uncomfortable.

Grantaire goes to grab the dough for the baguettes  _ à l’ancienne _ from the fridge and thanks the Lord that he has so much to do, if only so that he can shut the fuck up for a little bit.

Apollo has opened one of the files and grabbed the notepad, which he balances on his knee as he reads. 

He doesn’t look particularly dangerous, either. He mostly just looks tired.

Grantaire rallies himself and measures out the fucking flour and does his best to shut the fuck up, to pretend Apollo isn’t there. The scratch of his pen--steady, constant--really isn’t helping.

It isn’t until he’s got the first batch in the oven--the  _ anciennes _ \--that he wipes his hands on his apron, turns, and-

And sees his Apollo, watching him. He drops his gaze back to the files, quick as anything, but that’s enough to get his heart racing. And, apparently, enough to bring the slightest of flushes to the statue’s cheeks. 

He’s probably hungry, Grantaire realizes. “Do you-” he swallows. “Do you want something to eat? We’ve got the leftovers from yesterday, and they’ll be a little stale, but they’re still good, and if you’re hungry, you-” he bites back the rest of his words, and they sting in his throat, acrid and sharp. 

But all Apollo says is, “Oh,” soft and gentle-like, and he looks up, again. “Yes, thank you, that would be… I’d like that. If you don’t mind.”

“Course,” Grantaire manages, under the weight of his gaze. “Yeah, sure thing.” 

They--that’s Musichetta and the boys--keep the leftovers and the mistakes on a tray in the cabinet, for snacking purposes. Not baguettes--those go stale too fast to keep overnight, but the viennoiserie and some of the bigger loaves. And usually, it doesn’t even matter it they’re stale, or misshapen, only-

He’s really, really praying that there’s something good left over, something made late in the day, something that isn’t split too badly. He inspects the tray, before he pulls it out--there’s some stuff that he already knows is stale, and he  _ saw  _ Bossuet drop that brioche on the floor, yesterday, and there’s filling from a split chausson that got all over the stuff it got stacked on, but-

He picks through the tray, sorting it out as best he can--passable things on the left side, things beautiful frightening men shouldn’t touch on the right--before he brings it over. “Don’t take anything from the right side,” he mutters. “‘S stale.”

His Apollo hesitates. “Can I-”

“Take as much as you want,” he says. “Anything.” And, because that sounds just a little too honest, he says, then, “It’s just scraps. We have to toss them as soon as the new stuff starts coming out.”

He’s looking up at him, again, all big eyes and cheekbones. “You’re sure? I can pay, if you want, I don’t mind, I-”

“Please,” Grantaire blurts out. “Please, it’s fine. Take anything.”

“Thank you,” he says. He reaches out, tentative, and takes a croissant--basic, simple.

Grantaire waits.

And, wonderfully, miraculously-

Apollo quirks a cautious little smile--mischievous, almost--and darts a hand out to grab a pain aux raisins. 

Grantaire feels a little bit like his heart is going to melt.

( _ This is stupid,  _ he tells himself, somewhere deep in the back of his mind, but he can’t seem to make himself heed the warning.)

“Thank you,” Apollo says again.

His cheeks feel hot, too hot. “Yeah.” He needs to get back to baking, now, really, he does. “Sure.” He sets the tray down on the counter, well within reach. He can take whatever he wants, anything.

He gets the next batch of bread into the oven, gets back to making dough for the rest of the baguettes, only-

“You make these?” he asks from the corner. It sounds like his mouth is full, and Grantaire knows he was right when he swallows, apologizes. 

“Nah,” he says, and Grantaire wishes he could lie, could tell him that yes, he made them, so long as they’re good, so long as he likes them. He can’t. “Joly and Bossuet, they come in later and do all that. I’m just the bread guy.”

He doesn’t want to turn, but he can’t bear not to. Apollo has crumbs on his lap and a bit of grease on his cheek. 

“It’s good,” he says. 

Grantaire makes a noise in agreement. “They know their shit.”

Apollo nods. “You do, too.” He, suddenly, seems very interested in the lamination inside the croissant. “Know your, um, shit, that is. The baguette, it was good. Last time.”

And it’s like-

It’s like Grantaire’s brain shorts out, okay, and it isn’t his fault, and he’s stuck trying to prevent himself from making a sexual innuendo and trying to prevent himself from throwing himself at his Apollo’s feet and begging for  _ something _ , and-

And oh, God, he’s probably in the  _ mob,  _ he’s here because he needs to  _ hide something _ , and Grantaire is absolutely going to get himself shot, or, like, stabbed, or, like, threatened, or whatever the mob is up to, these days, and all he can manage is a choked out, “Good.”

Fuck.

At least he didn’t ask to suck his dick. Small miracles. 

“You said you work with other people?” Apollo asks.

Fuck, maybe Grantaire shouldn’t have told him their names, but it’s too late, now. “They don’t come in until five thirty,” he says. “I won’t-” and he lies, now, “I won’t tell them about you, or anything.” And, because he  _ wants,  _ “You could stay until then, if you want to. They’re always running late, you don’t have to worry about them.”

And Apollo, in a moment of benedictive mercy, smiles. It’s tentative, and…  _ awkward,  _ almost, and it’s the most beautiful thing that Grantaire has ever seen. His eyes crinkle at the corners, just slightly. One of his teeth is chipped, just barely enough to notice, but if anyone would notice, it would be Grantaire. “Thank you,” he says, and it feels like that’s one of the only things he says to him, which is silly, really, since Grantaire is the one who feels grateful.

“Yeah.” His throat feels dry.

A buzzer goes off. (Buzzer number two, he thinks distantly.) He can’t drag his eyes away from his fucking face. 

“Um,” he says, pointedly. “Your timer is…”

Grantaire scrambles to turn it off, to take the bread out of the oven and set it aside. “Sorry,” he mutters. God, he’s an idiot, sometimes. Best, in his opinion, to just get back to the dough and give up on making conversation, if all he’s going to do is stare.

He can still hear the scratching of a pen underneath the sound of the mixer, but it’s possible that he’s just going crazy. 

He does his best, his very best, to slip back into his routine, into the rhythm of oven-scale-counter-oven-mixer-oven, and it almost works. He’s worked distracted before, he knows what he’s doing, it’s fine. He isn’t even falling that far behind, this time, and he’s getting a lot done, and-

“Grantaire?”

Grantaire sets the razor blade he’s using to score the dough down. “Mm?”

“If-” he sounds cautious, nervous, and Grantaire turns around, then. Apollo is staring down at one of the files, lip worried between his teeth. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose; Grantaire didn’t even know people did that, in real life. “If you knew that somebody was… up to something, and it wasn’t necessarily your job to handle it, and you could get into a lot of trouble if you did, but you knew that it was possible that if you didn’t, nobody would, would-” he clears his throat, looks up. “Would you?”

And, oh, Grantaire can tell that this is really fucking serious. This isn’t something he should mess around with, this isn’t even something that he should  _ know _ about, he- “I just bake bread,” he chokes out.

His Apollo drops his gaze, shakes his head. “Right, sorry, I-”

“What kind of thing?”

There are eyes on him, again. “Huh?” (God, but there’s something about the way he fucking  _ looks _ at people.)

Grantaire swallows. “You said, if you knew somebody was up to something. What kind of thing?”

He fiddles with the corner of one of the papers. “Something like, somebody’s taking advantage of a lot of people who can’t really do anything about it.”

God, he has no idea what that means, but-

But there’s something about that flash in his eyes, again, that makes Grantaire, for once in his fucking life, wish for something  _ more.  _ And all he can do is hope that he isn’t encouraging a mob hit, or something, or-

“I probably wouldn’t do anything,” he admits, and God, why would he admit that, why on Earth would he own up to the fact that he’s never done anything worthwhile in his life? 

Apollo’s face starts to drop, and he rushes on.

“I probably wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean, fuck, I-” he dares to approach. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t wish I would, and that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t, cause… You said that nobody else would deal with it? If you didn’t?”

He gives a nod--miniscule, hardly noticeable. Just a twitch of muscle, really. 

“You want to, right?”

He takes a breath, slow. “I’m frightened,” he admits.

Grantaire is adrift, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. “But you want to?”

“I want to.” Apollo swallows. “I need to, I think.” He scrapes the hair back from his face. “Thank you,” he says, for the thousandth time.

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, and he’s staring, again. There’s a mini bandaid on the curve of his jaw, half-hidden by hair; he must have cut himself shaving. He wonders if he swore when it happened. He wonders if he’d noticed the blood pooling, right away.

“I think I should go,” he says, and Grantaire starts. “Your coworkers, they-”

He hadn’t even noticed how much time had passed. It’s nearly five fifteen.

“Sure, yeah, sorry I-” Grantaire pauses. He’s not quite sure what he’s sorry for, actually. Probably something important.

Fuck.

Apollo stands, too sudden by half, and just like that, they’re too close. And Grantaire knows he needs to take a step back, needs to move away, only-

Only, from here, he can see the curl of his lashes, the flash of freckles across his nose, every single detail of his lips and the little scar, just below them. And he’s being handed something, too, and he looks down, and-

And, right, he said he’d keep the files for him. Only-

“You’re sure?” Grantaire asks. His voice sounds rougher than he’d expected. 

Apollo frowns. “You don’t have to. You don’t- You don’t owe me, or anything, and I know you don’t know me. You don’t have to.”

“No!” Grantaire wipes his hands on his apron, nervous. “I just mean, like, you trust me to? To keep them?”

His brow furrows. “Yes?” Like it’s not a question. Like Grantaire is to be trusted with anything that is not bread. Like Grantaire is to be trusted at all. 

He wipes his hands on his apron again--he’s sweating. And, because his Apollo asked, he reaches out to take the files. “I’ll keep them safe, I swear,” he blurts out. “I won’t tell anyone. I won’t look.”

And Apollo, he-

He hands them over and lays a hand on Grantaire’s shoulder and smiles, and Grantaire is pretty sure his heart stutters, stumbles over itself.

“Thanks, Grantaire,” he says, like Grantaire can even fucking  _ breathe.  _

Grantaire can’t tear his eyes away, despite it all. “Cool,” he says.

And Apollo, as if he’s fucking  _ trying _ to do him in, says, “Cool,” and smiles a little brighter.

Fucking  _ hell.  _

And then it’s over. Apollo drops his hand, leaves Grantaire with the papers. “May I take another pastry for the road?” he asks, and Grantaire wheezes a reply in the affirmative.

And then he’s gone.

Grantaire stands there, in the middle of the floor, for a moment, and then-

Shit, he’s got a batch in the oven. He pulls them, and only burns his hand a little, and-

God, he needs to find somewhere to hide the fucking files. Somewhere Joly and Bossuet won’t find them by accident. Somewhere nobody else would either, if-

What if somebody comes looking for them, God, what did Grantaire get himself into?

He needs to focus. There’s got to be someplace nobody uses, because this is important, and his Apollo is trusting him, and-

There is a gap between the back of the counters and the wall. It’s small, and dark, and, Grantaire figures as he eyes the bread, they keep to their own stations. It’ll work, unless it doesn’t, so he wraps the whole bundle in plastic wrap and tapes it to the back of the counter, as far back as he can reach.

It’s the best he can do.

The rest of the day would go pretty fast, he figures, if only he could stop his gaze from lingering on the counter like it is.

(He wonders what’s in the files. He won’t read them, he already knows that, but he sure fucking wonders.)

His Apollo comes back about a week later, when Grantaire’s already drawn him close to what must be a dozen times. It’s hard not to, now that he knows about the chip on his tooth. Now that he knows about the way his hands stay busy, fidget with whatever comes into their path. Now that he knows what he looks like when he smiles. He’s there, like before--already on the doorstep before Grantaire has even rounded the corner. 

“Hello,” Grantaire says, like his heart isn’t pounding.

“Good morning,” says Apollo. “I needed- The documents, do you still have them?”

He would protest, say  _ Of course I do, I’m not a liar, I’m not a fucking flake,  _ only, he looks… nervous, almost. “Yeah,” he says, instead. “Of course. Come in.” He unlocks the door. His hands are only shaking a little bit.

“How are you?” Asks Apollo. Like that’s normal. Like that’s something he should be thinking about.

Grantaire focuses on guiding him back to the kitchen and then, on reaching back behind the counter to pick at the tape. “Good, good, you know,” he feels his fingers brush against plastic. “The usual. Not much happens in the lives of us everyday folk, Apollo.” Except for this, he figures. This, apparently, happens. 

“Good,” Apollo echoes. He is watching too closely as Grantaire strains for the files. That, and Grantaire wants his gaze on him forever.

He makes purchase on a strip of tape, tugs it off. “How are you?” He hazards. The rest of the package comes off with a hearty tug, and he has it in his hands. He offers it up, like offertory, like regular sacrifice. 

“Good,” he says again. He takes the files gingerly, tugs at the cling wrap. “Stressed,” he offers, then, with a quirk of the mouth that seems almost like a smile, private and knowing. “Thank you for this.” He shakes the files, but then he hesitates, glances over at the folding chair. “May I-”

“Please,” Grantaire says, and he’s hoping he can pass his enthusiasm off as politesse, and not longing. He goes to pull the dough for the  _ anciennes  _ from the fridge, and then, because he’s there already, grabs the leftovers tray from the cabinet. He sets it down beside the chair. Only-

Only, some of the viennoiserie is far too stale, because they just piled everything on top of the previous day’s, yesterday, and he already knows what Apollo likes, anyways, so it’s not too hard for him to-

Grantaire grabs the croissant from the side, the one he knows was from the last batch of the day because Bossuet left it in for just a moment too long, and the pain aux raisins where the spiral fell out, and hands them over.

“Oh,” says Apollo, and he looks surprised. “Thank you, Grantaire.”

“Yeah,” says Grantaire.

Apollo takes out his notepad and unwraps the files and gets to work. Grantaire measures out the flour and tries not to look at him. 

They work in silence. Grantaire gets batch after batch of baguettes in and out of the oven--it’s a little easier than it was last week. He lets himself fall into the rhythm. The baskets start to fill.

And then his Apollo stretches, scrubs a hand across his face, and Grantaire misscores a baguette. Oh, well. It was bound to happen. 

“Grantaire,” Apollo says, and God, why won’t he stop saying his  _ name _ , though? (Why won’t he say it more?) 

He doesn’t continue, so Grantaire hums and glances over, keeps his hands busy. 

There is a bit of silence--a respite. “Have you been a baker for long?”

Grantaire frowns. “Yeah, you know-” and he means to think about how much of it all he really wants to tell this beautiful, stunning man, this man with skin and hair and eyes bright like the sun, only it’s all coming out, then. “I studied for it, you know, but, um, I wasn’t very motivated, after, for a while, cause I was having a hard time, so there was a while when I didn’t really-” he tries again. “But Joly and Bossuet, their girlfriend was looking for a baker, cause the old one left, and they hired me only about two years ago. So. On and off.”

“Oh,” says Apollo.

Grantaire tries not to wince. “Oh?”

“You’re very good.”

_ Oh,  _ Grantaire thinks. Not that he knows what the fuck any of that means, or why he asked, or why he came back, a week ago, asking Grantaire if he could leave his fucking files in the bakery. Anyways,  _ oh. _

“Thanks,” he chokes out, too late to be casual. 

Apollo keeps reading, keeps taking notes. 

Grantaire forces himself to turn away and to finish scoring the loaves. It’s hard.

He peeks back, once they’re in the oven--just because he can’t quite remember how his Apollo has tied his hair back, and he needs to know.

And-

He looks up while Grantaire is still watching, and he’s caught, and he knows it.

Neither of them mention that.

Instead, Apollo says, “Do you ever write?”

He can’t help but scoff. “Me? No.” Only, then, Apollo’s face falls, and he scrambles for an explanation, a remedy. “I wish, right? It’s better for everybody that way, though, I promise. I have no thoughts that are worthy of being written down. It’s just bread and misery, up in here.”

Somehow, that doesn’t draw the frown from his face, nor the furrow from his brow.

“I paint,” Grantaire offers, half-desperate. “I paint, often.”

“Oh,” he says, and the frown is gone. “What do you paint?”

( _ You _ , Grantaire nearly says,  _ you, nearly all the time, now, _ he nearly shouts, but then he doesn’t. Instead-) “Whatever I like. Beautiful things. A lot of still lives. Some portraiture, when I’m feeling it to it.” It’s not too much of a lie to make his gut wrench, but it’s coming close.

He’s smiling, now, soft. “I can’t paint to save my life,” he offers up. “I can’t draw, either.”

“You should draw me,” Grantaire hears himself say. And, to go all in, to make it fully a joke, he cocks a hip, holds up a baguette. “Unleash your inner artist.”

“Absolutely not,” Apollo says, biting back a smile as best he can.

Grantaire’s heart feels like it’s fluttering inside his chest. “You’re gonna miss out on an opportunity for artistic discovery?”

“Yes, I am,” he says, still smiling, but then he looks back down at the files, and his smile drops. 

(It was fun while it lasted, Grantaire supposes.)

He starts weighing out dough.

“I write,” Apollo offers, and that’s all he says, and Grantaire can’t ask him anything, he  _ can’t _ , but he just knows he’ll be thinking about that for a really, really long time. 

And later-

Later, Apollo says, “I should go,” and stands, and Grantaire finds himself pressing the baguette with the messed-up scoring, the reject, into his hands. It’s still warm.

Their hands brush, and that’s even warmer.

Grantaire gets the files wrapped up and taped behind the counter before Joly and Bossuet come in, but he forgets to put the leftovers tray back into the cabinet and he forgets to fold up the chair. 

They come in, bright and lovely, and Joly pauses, frowns. Bossuet bumps into him in the doorway, but it doesn’t distract him. “Grantaire?” He asks, because Grantaire just knows that he is acting off, and Joly’s always been so good at being able to tell.

“He came back,” he says, cutting to the chase. He’s not quite sure why his voice sounds so hoarse. “The- Apollo. He’s been back.”

Bossuet sets his stuff down in a hurry. “Are you okay? Did he, like, hurt you, or anything?”

It’s a good question, Grantaire thinks distantly. Maybe he ought to be more concerned. “No,” he says. “No, he- He came in last week and wanted to know if he could keep something in here.”

“Last  _ week _ ?” Joly has apparently deemed this more important than hanging his jacket up properly, because it drops to the ground. “Grantaire, last  _ week _ ?”

“And today,” Grantaire clarifies. “It’s just files. He reads them in here, he said-” he swallows. “He said they had his address, that this was safer. It’s fine.”

“R, that might be  _ evidence _ ,” Joly has his hands on Grantaire’s shoulders. “What if he killed someone? You can’t just keep that here!”

“It’s fine,” he says again, because… Honestly, he kind of thinks it is. Apollo probably wouldn’t get him into any kind of trouble, not with how careful he’s being, and-

And not to be presumptuous, but he doesn’t really seem like a killer, not to Grantaire.

Grantaire rubs his thumb across the back of Joly’s hand. “He’s just taking notes. It’s only temporary.” He glances over at Bossuet, who appears to be glancing around the kitchen as though Apollo might be hiding behind the flour. “It’s really fine,” he says, because if he does end up getting killed by his Apollo, well-

What a way to go, right?

(He actually really, really doesn’t want that to happen.)

“You’re going to give me an aneurism, R,” Joly sighs, but he drops his hands. “I’m telling Chetta.”

It is Chetta’s bakery, Grantaire figures. It’s only fair. “Okay.”

When Musichetta comes in, and Joly and Bossuet explain what had happened, she gives him a kiss on the top of his head. God bless Musichetta.

They don’t look for the files. They wouldn’t find them, anyways, but Grantaire is glad they don’t look.

It’s only four days before Apollo comes back to the bakery. He comes late--closer to four thirty than to four, and he knocks on the door politely. 

Grantaire answers, because, well, of course he does. “Hello, Apollo,” he says.

Apollo--rumpled, in a tee-shirt and a pair of pajama pants, his hair tied up in a bun so shapeless it will surely find its way onto a canvas soon--smiles. “Good morning,” he says, as always. “I’m sorry for my appearance.”

Grantaire can’t even breathe, so he figures it doesn’t really matter. There is a line from a pillow pressed into his Apollo’s cheek, and he can’t stop looking at it. “‘S fine.” He moves aside to let him in, and he enters. He looks like he fits in, with it all.

“I just need to check something,” he says, so Grantaire goes to free the files from behind the counter. He hands them over with a pain aux raisins. 

“Anytime,” Grantaire says, and he can’t even hide how much he means it. 

Apollo doesn’t even have his notepad, this time--he scribbles his notes down, frantic and intentional, on a sheet of scrap paper that he had pulled from the front counter. “I feel like I know where to go from here,” he explains, voice hushed but clearly for Grantaire, anyways.

Grantaire doesn’t even bother to keep working, not now--this is important. “Yeah?”

He nods. “I got a tip from one of Ferre’s colleagues, and it’s made it all fit together.” He takes a bite of the pain aux raisins. “And I knew I remembered something from the files, but I didn’t write it down because I didn’t think it would be important, so I had to stop by.”

“Congratulations,” Grantaire says, and he hopes that whatever he’s up to isn’t going to be a problem. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from feeling proud for him, anyways.

And he’s busy, nose buried in papers, so Grantaire lets himself watch. He’s fresh out of bed, that’s clear enough, and Grantaire takes a moment to consider-

(To consider waking up to him, waking up to copper-bronze-gold and to warm hands and to a smile with a chip in one of the teeth and to eyes like he’s never fucking seen before in his life. He considers bringing him viennoiserie that isn’t stale and watching him eat it and watching him smile again. He considers, then, the possibility of knowing a name--just something to call him that didn’t come straight from his own head.)

He watches. 

Apollo, once he is done with the pastry, bites at the corner of his thumb, and Grantaire will draw that, too.

And Grantaire can’t say if it takes three minutes or twenty, but Apollo sets down his pen and folds the paper up and sticks it in his pocket. 

“Grantaire,” he says, and Grantaire flushes at the address. He still can't tear his eyes away. 

“Yes?” he hears himself ask.

And Apollo, his Apollo, takes a step towards him, and then another.

(He wonders, distantly, if this is it--if he is about to be stabbed. He must have meant it, last week, when he’d thought it--what a fucking way to go.)

Only, he doesn’t draw anything--he just reaches a hand up and places it on Grantaire’s shoulder, and-

(And Grantaire talks about not being able to breathe a lot, okay, he knows, only this time, this time,  _ this time,  _ and-)

And he leans in and presses a kiss, soft and searing, to Grantaire’s cheek. “Thank you,” he says, and he’s smiling, but there’s something serious in his gaze. 

“Yeah,” Grantaire chokes out. “Whatever you need.”

“I’ll come back for the files,” Apollo says. 

“Okay.” He’ll be back,  _ he’ll be back.  _

“I have to go, now,” Apollo says.

“Okay.” He can still feel the sear of the kiss on his skin. He watches himself grab a baguette from the basket, hand it over numbly. 

“Thank you,” says Apollo, once more, and when he leaves, Grantaire sits down in the folding chair and  _ breathes. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> grantaire's love language is Baked Good and he's trying his best
> 
> stay tuned! i am Inspired and writing rapidly!


	3. June

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire waits, of course. He waits a full week before he even worries at all--rounding the corner with a pounding heart and sweaty hands each morning, hoping for a flash of gold beneath the streetlight. 
> 
> No such luck.
> 
> It’s fine, though, Grantaire tries to convince himself. If anything, Apollo probably just doesn’t need the files, yet. It’s fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! it's rated explicit now.

Only, he doesn’t come back for the files. 

Grantaire waits, of course. He waits a full week before he even worries at all--rounding the corner with a pounding heart and sweaty hands each morning, hoping for a flash of gold beneath the streetlight. 

No such luck.

It’s fine, though, Grantaire tries to convince himself. If anything, Apollo probably just doesn’t need the files, yet. It’s fine.

Grantaire finishes the portrait. It’s good, but it’s nothing compared to the real thing. (It is, Grantaire thinks vaguely, a bit like trying to take a photograph of the sky.) He accepts that as part of the nature of his subject and pours himself a celebratory drink.

That evening, he watches the last layer of paint dry on the canvas and jerks off in his studio and lets himself imagine-

He lets himself picture his Apollo, soft from sleep, like he had been that one morning, in pajamas and an old tee-shirt, bare arms against Grantaire’s sheets. Lets himself think about the way he says his name-- _ Grantaire,  _ he says, all intentional, with just a hint of an accent that sounds southern but that Grantaire can’t place to save his life. Lets himself remember the--oh, God--the way his lips had felt against his cheek, the heavy weight of a hand on his shoulder, lets himself think of the sunlight that comes in his window on Sundays, when he can sleep in long enough to be woken by it, and how it would splash over his skin like honey, like gold, and his Apollo would smile, and Grantaire would touch him, and-

He comes, wipes it up with a paper towel.

Christ.

Three days later, when Apollo has yet to follow through on that promise of his, Grantaire lets himself worry. Because  _ Christ, _ he’d  _ said  _ that he was worried, he’d  _ said _ that they knew where he lived, and Grantaire isn’t so naive as to think that all the secrecy was out of simple precaution. 

He slaps the dough onto the countertop with a little more force than necessary. 

God, he doesn’t even know what Apollo got himself into, he realizes. It’s dangerous, yeah, Grantaire knows that from the whole  _ two men with guns chasing his Apollo at half past four in the morning,  _ but…

This shit could be  _ serious.  _

His gut wrenches. He begs his hands to keep moving, to keep sectioning off and weighing the dough, to keep doing something to keep at least part of his mind off of the fact that for all he knows, Apollo could be fucking  _ dead,  _ or in jail, and-

And Grantaire doesn’t even know his  _ fucking  _ name, fuck, and-

He stops.

He could find out exactly what kind of shit he got himself into. He could do it easily. The files are there, right beneath his counter, and there’s nobody else in the bakery, and he could look. He could know.

He can’t bear to. 

That afternoon, he takes two pains aux raisins home with him and he eats them on his balcony for lunch and he thinks about the way that Apollo’s fingers had gotten sticky from the glaze, and how much he’d wanted to suck them clean.

He doesn’t jerk off to the thought, because the fact that he might be dead and in a gutter somewhere is a bit of a mood-killer.

His Apollo is not on the stoop the next morning.

Nor is he there the one after that.

“So, do you think he, like, killed someone?” Joly asks as he rolls croissants, his hands quick and practiced. It’s still early, Grantaire supposes, but he’s been in for five hours and there’s an ache in his bones and he’s scared.

“No,” Grantaire grits out. He doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to know anything. Ignorance has suited him very well in life, thanks very much.

Joly hums, deftly ignoring Grantaire’s tone and, apparently, everything he just said. “Do you think he’s a hitman?”

“No,” he says, only, it’s a good question, and his brain is spinning like a wheel removed from the comfort of the ground and it seems too reasonable. “Don’t say that.”

“Do you think he’s in prison?” Bossuet pipes up from where he’s drinking his coffee. He’s on break; Grantaire usually takes one, too, but he doesn’t want that, right now.

He startles, scores too deep into the loaf. “Fuck,” he hisses. They won’t be able to sell that one, which makes it one for the  _ ugly bread for employees _ bin. “Shut up, both of you. Just,” the words cram together in his throat. “Shut up about it.”

They shut up, but Grantaire can hear them jostling each other playfully behind his back. (Thank God, he thinks distantly, that he has friends who accept the fact that he is an asshole and an all-around pain to be around. He doesn’t know how he got them, or why they do it, but thank God.)

“Have you considered the possibility that he might be an assassin?” Fuck, he hadn’t even heard Musichetta come in. She stands in the doorway, hands tucked into the pockets of her apron. “You know, all things considered. Files, stuff like that.”

“He’s not an assassin.” (He might be an assassin, fuck, what if he’s an assassin? Does Grantaire even care about any major political figures enough to stop whacking it to him? He doesn’t think so.) “Leave off.”

(They don’t know how Apollo had sounded, when he’d asked Grantaire whether he should do anything. They don’t know how scared he’d looked. They don’t know the way he’d complimented Grantaire’s bread and asked him about writing and kissed him on the fucking cheek. They don’t know.)

Musichetta drapes her arms over Grantaire’s shoulders. The weight is warm, comforting. A moment later, Joly leans up against him; Bossuet’s arms are already twined around Joly. “You’ll be okay,” she says.

Grantaire, ever the annoyance, the thorn in the shoe, says, “Yeah,” because he can’t help it, “ _ I’ll  _ be okay.” His Apollo may well be-

Be-

“He’ll be okay, too,” Joly murmurs. “Isn’t he, like, cool and smart and on top of things? And doesn’t he know a doctor? He’ll be okay.”

Grantaire doesn’t know if he fully believes that, but it’s a comfort to hear.

Bossuet plants a kiss on his temple, and that’s a comfort, too.

(Apollo still isn’t on the stoop, the next morning.)

And then-

It’s a Monday evening, nearly July, and Grantaire is eating dinner on his balcony, leaning over the rail and resting his chin on one folded arm, and-

And there, in the street, is Combeferre. Combeferre, Apollo’s doctor friend. Combeferre, who wears sweater vests--although it’s too warm out, for sweater vests, and he wears a simple shirt and has his blazer folded over his arm. Combeferre, who is looking right back up at Grantaire.

_ Fuck. _

Grantaire is moving before he even thinks to do so--setting down his dinner and scrambling to his feet and bruising his shin on a door frame, as he whips around it, and he runs downstairs in his slippers, because this is  _ important, _ and-

And Combeferre is gone, by the time he reaches the street.

“Fuck,” Grantaire mutters. And then, because it doesn’t fucking  _ matter,  _ he yells it. “Fuck!”

God, he’s an idiot. That was his chance, he knows it--people don’t get another coincidence like that, and he took too fucking long to get downstairs and he fucking blew it and his Apollo has slipped right through his fucking fingers,  _ fuck.  _

He can’t believe himself. Perhaps, he reasons, this is his punishment for all that he has utterly failed to do--to be left in the shoes of Tantalus, to be made aware of someone so amazing and to dance after them for the rest of his days. To paint him until the paintings no longer look like the muse. To dream of him, to no end. To fucking jerk it to somebody he’s known for a grand total of three hours until he, mercifully, kicks the bucket and puts an end to it all.

Speaking of shoes, though-

He is in his slippers in the middle of the sidewalk.

He goes back upstairs and sits down on the floor of his apartment and buries his face in his hands.

(Apollo doesn’t come back the next morning, or the next, or the next, or the next, or the next.)

And then-

It’s Saturday night--late, too late--and Grantaire is curled up on the sofa and sketching idly in the margins of the newspaper, and there is a knock at the door. 

It’s Joly, probably--he’d gotten all into a huff about Grantaire not feeling up to movie night, and it wouldn’t be unprecedented for the three of them to have simply decided that if Grantaire would not be joining  _ them  _ for the evening,  _ they _ would be joining  _ him. _ And so he answers the door, unrushed, sweatpants-clad, and-

“Apollo,” he breathes.

Because-

He’s  _ there.  _ There, and just as stunning as always, and he’s got what looks like the very tail end of a black eye, just around the socket, and  _ oh _ , wow, distance truly must make the heart grow fonder, because Grantaire’s is hammering, fluttering, in his chest. 

He’s also at Grantaire’s fucking apartment, what the fuck?

“What-”

“I need the files,” he says.

Grantaire swallows. “How do you know where I live?” God, is he in trouble? Like, mortal trouble? (What a way to go, his heart reminds him. And also, his heart reminds him,  _ mortal trouble _ is typically called  _ danger _ .)

“I looked you up on the internet. Combeferre went to see if it was really your address and he saw you.” And, well, that settles that. 

“Oh,” says Grantaire. He wishes he had an apron on, if only so that he had somewhere to put his hands. He wishes he wasn’t wearing his rattiest pair of sweatpants.

“I need the files,” Apollo says, again. “Do you still have them?”

Grantaire struggles to clear his head. “Not here,” he manages, only that’s enough to bring a furrow to Apollo’s brow and a tension to his shoulders that wasn’t there before, so he rushes on. “Not at my apartment, in the bakery.”

He, at the very least, has the decency to look sheepish. “Right.” At the very least, he stops fucking looking at Grantaire like that, all firey eyes and clenched jaw. “Would-”

And, well, he doesn’t need to finish that question; Grantaire figures he would do just about anything, if he asked, so why does it matter if he asks?

“Sure,” Grantaire says. “Sure, yeah, of course.” He grabs his keys, slips his shoes on, looks back up. “Whatever you need,” he says.

Apollo waits for him to lock the door behind them, then presses the button for the elevator. “Thank you,” he says, in the too-long wait, and just like that, Grantaire is thinking of a morning in May and lips against his cheek. 

“Yeah,” he chokes out. “Sure.”

The elevator arrives. They stand too far apart and too close together.

“So,” Apollo says, once they’re outside, standing beside one another on familiar concrete. “How have you been?”

Grantaire huffs a laugh, because fuck, wouldn’t the truth be something to tell. Instead, he settles on, “Fine,” and “Highly unremarkable,” because it’s better than  _ fucking desperate _ . He starts walking, if only so that gets to turn away, but tugging his gaze from his Apollo hurts like someone’s ripping something essential from within his ribs. 

He hears Apollo stumble to follow after him, trip on the square of pavement that Grantaire knows is misplaced, jutting up. “How are your coworkers? Joly and,” It’s an offering, or it’s something dangerous. “Bassette, was it?”

“Bossuet,” Grantaire says, because it’s not like he won’t be able to look it up, anyways. “Codependant, vaguely annoying, perpetually running late, habitually kind, the usual.” And he can’t help but to look back, then, and they match pace, and-

And Apollo smiles, tentative and brilliant. 

(Grantaire’s heart pounds out a quick two-step.)

They round the corner, and neither of them say anything until Grantaire swallows his pride and the burning panic lodged in his throat and says, “How, um,” he fumbles with his keys, far premature. “How are you?”

This time, the smile Grantaire gets in return is bright and tinged with surprise and it’s a good thing that they’ve reached the bakery because Grantaire has to take a moment, as he unlocks the door, to suck in a deep breath.

“I’m doing well,” says Apollo, and his smile drops to something more serious but no less stunning. “I think that the, the thing I’m working on? I think it’s going to work out. I was worried, you know?”

Grantaire hums a noise of affirmation. He doesn’t bother with the lights. 

Apollo follows him into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Grantaire rambles, and he knows his way in the dark but Apollo does not. “But we don’t save the leftovers, on Saturdays, aside from what we bring home, cause we aren’t open Sundays and by Monday it’s just way too stale, so you’ll have to suffer through my company without, today. My apologies, truly, I-” He clears his throat, begging himself to shut the fuck up, to no avail. “I say, if you wanted a pain aux raisins, you should have had whatever crisis this is last night.”

He gets no response, which is better than he deserves. 

He gets to his knees beside the counter, falling a little too hard in the process. The jar is good for him.

Somewhere across the room, he can hear Apollo breathing, deep and slow. (Fuck, if that won’t find its way into some of his more colorful dreams.)

It takes him a while to get the files--his hands are shaking, and he’d taped it more securely, last time, anyways. But he gets them, and he rises to his feet, and turns, and-

And Apollo is right there, nothing but a silhouette in the dark of the kitchen and burning hot through the meager space and breathing slow but tense as anything, Grantaire can fucking  _ feel _ it.

“Apollo?” His voice cracks.

He imagines-

No, he doesn’t imagine, he doesn’t need to, because-

Apollo reaches for something behind his torso, subtle and slow but Grantaire recognizes the movement from before he fell in with a better crowd and winces in the anticipation, because  _ idiot, stupid, fuckhead, dumbass,  _ there are  _ knives _ in the kitchen, ones so sharp they’d cost Grantaire a good hefty fucking chunk of his third paycheck, and-

And Grantaire can already feel how cold the floor will be, and-

And  _ what a way to go, what a way to go, what a way to go,  _ and-

Why would he bring him here at night, why would he follow him-

Why  _ wouldn’t  _ he follow him, and if this is all that he is meant for, if this is the end of him, and if all he gets is one hand on his shoulder, bracing strong, and the other pushed flush to his gut and clenched tight around his own chef’s knife, well-

“Grantaire,” says Apollo. He hasn’t moved. His hand is still behind his back. Grantaire can still breathe without aching deep, for the most part.

“Mm?” He feels himself lean close, too close, towards that too-hot skin.

“I should thank you,” says Apollo.

Grantaire can do nothing but shove the files forward, offer them up unto him.

And-

And-

And-

And instead of taking them, his Apollo rests a hand on his shoulder (Grantaire winces, grits his teeth) and leans in close,  _ burning _ close, and kisses him.

_ Kisses  _ him.

As though Grantaire is someone who ought to be kissed.

As though anything makes sense, anymore.

But-

But  _ oh,  _ Grantaire’s brain has shorted but his body cannot help but to melt into the warmth, and his hands cannot help but to grab tight, too tight, and he cannot help but to kiss back.

Apollo pulls back. His eyes are serious, glinting in the dark. His hair is mussed where Grantaire could not help but hold. “Grantaire,” he says, again, and Grantaire is vaguely aware of the fact that he is gasping for breath, choking for it. He is also aware of the fact that he cannot quite bring himself to let go of Apollo’s wrist.

He tugs, pulls the hand that had been behind his Apollo’s back into what little light there is. It’s empty, flexing on air and nothing else and nothing dangerous, either. Grantaire can’t take his eyes off of his fingers and the way they curve.

“Grantaire.”

He looks up, is met with the sun.

“I meant to thank you,” says Apollo.

He gulps. “You always thank me,” he hears himself mumble. His lips feel numb. 

“You did me a favor,” says Apollo.

“You kissed me,” says Grantaire, because his head is ringing like somebody fired a shot a hair’s breadth away from one of his ears.

“I meant to thank you,” he says, again, and Grantaire doesn’t understand but he doesn’t think he ever will, either, so it doesn’t matter.

He lists forward, kisses his Apollo--the statue, the man. Damn any risk, any reward but the one beneath his fingers and against his lips. And-

Apollo kisses back, rough and sweet. He lets Grantaire walk him backward until he has him pressed up against the tiles on the wall, lets Grantaire hold him tight, too tight, and kisses him back like…

Like  _ Grantaire _ is what he’s been wanting, or something. Except-

Except he doesn’t stop kissing Grantaire, not really, but he does tug and twist his wrist out of Grantaire’s grasp all too suddenly, and Grantaire is left feeling bereft despite the lips beneath his own, only all he does is slip his hand into Grantaire’s instead.

(Grantaire’s heart flutters, and he has to pull back, just to breathe.)

(He’s dropped the files, he notices. They’re on the floor, off to the side--good riddance.)

“Grantaire,” Apollo breathes. His hand is delicate and strong in Grantaire’s clumsy grip.

“Anything,” says Grantaire, and he means it. “I’ll suck your cock,” he says, because at least that’s something he’s good at. He can’t stop himself from nosing at the corner of his Apollo’s jaw. “Black your boots. Anything. What do you want?”

Grantaire can feel him swallow.

“Wanna fuck me?” He asks, because he’s good at that, too, and maybe that’s enough, and-

And-

It’s Apollo who draws in a deep, unsteady breath, and Grantaire feels a wrench of pride. “Can we go back to your apartment?”

( _ What a way to go.) _

“Anything,” Grantaire mumbles, the words pressed to the hot skin of Apollo’s neck. “Yeah?”

Another breath. “Yeah.” 

Geralt forces his body to take a step back, then another. He grabs his keys, where he’d left them on the countertop. Apollo picks the files from up off the floor.

They walk back to the apartment in silence. They do not touch.

Apollo hits the button to call the elevator and on the way up he is so close to Grantaire and Grantaire wants to hear him say his name again.

He unlocks the door to his apartment. For a moment, they both stand there, in the entryway, watching each other. Grantaire doesn’t know where he’s allowed to fucking look, he doesn’t know what he’s allowed to do, he doesn’t know his fucking  _ name _ , he doesn’t know-

He is being kissed. He is being kissed, fast and not very experienced but so good, and Grantaire fumbles behind himself for the light switch if only so that he can-

So that, after a moment of blindness, he can fucking  _ look _ , and  _ Christ. _

His Apollo is close, so close, and Grantaire is very familiar, by now, with the slope of his nose and the line of his brow and the curve of his lips, but-

This is different, this is so, so, different, and Grantaire had never honestly thought-

He kisses him, presses him against the doorframe, lets his mouth wander down his throat once more to nip at tender skin. “Christ, Apollo, you-”

“Enjolras,” he gasps, and Grantaire stops.

He is staring at soft skin and golden curls and he cannot seem to make his body move, cannot seem to look anywhere else, cannot seem to even draw in a breath. He smells like sweat and fancy conditioner and something floral and something  _ deep _ . 

“Call me Enjolras,” he says, and then, “ _ Please.” _

Like handing a man in a desert a bottle of water and begging him to drink. Like setting something panicked, something wild, free, and willing it to run. 

“ _ Enjolras, _ ” Grantaire grits out. He wants to  _ bite _ . “What do you want?”

“You said,” he-- _ Enjolras, Enjolras, Enjolras _ \--gets a hand in Grantaire’s curls and tugs,  _ hard _ , until Grantaire is looking at him. “You said I could-” He can’t quite seem to push the words past his lips. Grantaire wants to taste them where they rest, so he kisses him.

He is not, he thinks distantly, going about this very well. He’s being selfish--clutching at him, kissing too rough and too fast, and the thing is, the thing is-

The thing is, Grantaire needs to make this fucking incredible for Enjolras, because if it’s good enough, maybe-

Maybe he’ll get to see him again. Touch him again.

He slows down. Slows down, and forces himself to breathe, and kisses Enjolras deep and slow and dirty, and he wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him close and Enjolras  _ moans _ . 

“ _ Grantaire, _ ” Enjolras chokes out, but he hasn’t moved away, and his lips brush Grantaire’s with every syllable, and Grantaire is starting to think that maybe this is how his name has always been meant to be said. “You said I could-” And he stops, again.

Grantaire groans in frustration, or possibly something else. It’s hard to tell. Everything feels so incredibly  _ much _ . “Anything,” he repeats, because he means it. 

“Yes, so you said,” he says, and he does pull back, then, and Grantaire stings with the loss. He is too golden in the warm light of Grantaire’s entryway for him to feel anything else. “You said I could fuck you,” he says. 

And  _ oh,  _ he-

Grantaire feels a whine rise up in his throat. He  _ wants,  _ and he lists forward against Enjolras and Enjolras has got his hands on Grantaire’s cheeks, soft and fucking strong and fucking dangerous and Grantaire would give everything, every single fucking shred of dignity he still has, for that to happen. For Enjolras to-

He tilts his head, mouthing at Enjolras’s hand, at his wrist. It’s hard to keep his eyes open, he thinks distantly--but he cannot bear to shut them, cannot bear to miss a second of this. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, but he sounds distracted. He strokes his thumb over Grantaire’s cheekbone, then back.

Grantaire is pretty distracted, too. “Mm?” 

“Please-” he swallows. “Please, Grantaire, let me?”

He can’t imagine a world where the answer wouldn’t be  _ yes,  _ so he nods. “Yeah,” he says. His voice is rough, resistant, but it doesn’t matter.

Enjolras tilts his forehead against Grantaire’s and, for a moment, just  _ breathes _ . “Okay,” he says. “Okay, um,” Grantaire reaches a hand up to rest on the side of his neck, to feel him swallow. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“Door on the left.” He can’t get enough of the way Enjolras’s skin feels against his, and all he has as reference is a few scant points of contact--forehead, hand, cheek. Ribs beneath cotton beneath his fingers.

Enjolras pulls away. Grantaire aches. “Wh-”

“Come on,” says Enjolras, though, and he takes Grantaire by the arm and tugs him towards the door. Towards the bedroom. Towards his bed. 

(Enjolras, in the morning, lit up gold; Enjolras, writhing against sheets; Enjolras, fast asleep and calm and soft, flashes through his head.)

And then-

They are in Grantaire’s bedroom.

He has left his painting smock on the floor. His bed is made, but hastily, nominally. The windows are open; the shutters are braced half-closed.

Enjolras stands, halfway between the bed at the door, his fingers worrying at the cuff of his sleeve. He looks nervous.

Grantaire still doesn’t quite know what’s going on, but he knows what he wants, and he knows-

This might be the last time he sees Enjolras again, anyways--what does it matter if he’s too close, too much?

He takes a step forward, but it’s Enjolras who looks up to meet his gaze and says, “Alright?”

“Alright,” says Grantaire, and his hands find their way to the buttons down Enjolras’s chest just as Enjolras leans in to kiss him. 

(Christ, God.)

His hands are shaking. Enjolras bites at his lips and Grantaire kisses back surely too hard but he doesn’t complain and he just kisses back even harder.

He gets the shirt open, and he has to pull back, then, because-

Because-

He untucks the shirt, pushes it back off of Enjolras’s shoulders, and is faced with soft bronze and fine muscles and more skin than he knows what to do with but to lay his hands on him. And Enjolras, bless him, lets him pull him in, lets him run his hands up his chest and around his strong shoulders and lets him curl one in his hair and the other around his waist and lets Grantaire lean in and press his face into his neck and just fucking  _ breathe _ .

This close, he almost thinks that Enjolras might be breathing a little fast, too. His pulse is jackhammering beneath Grantaire’s lips, in any case, and Grantaire, he’s only human.

He inhales deep and licks at the pulse point, just to see. To see what, he’s not sure, but Enjolras tightens his hold, so Grantaire, he-

He  _ bites _ . 

Not too hard, mind, because he can’t- He can’t stomach the thought of hurting him, his Apollo, but there’s something about-

There’s something about the mark that will surface, blood drawn flesh against the skin to bruise, that makes Grantaire  _ want _ . And he’s sure that Enjolras will pull him off in a few seconds, so he sucks at the skin and bites harder, only-

Only, he  _ doesn’t. _ Enjolras holds him in close, instead, warm and tight, hand clenched in his hair, and he moans like he’s never wanted anything else more.

Grantaire breathes a sob against Enjolras’s skin. He can’t stop feeling fingers in his hair, a hand on his back. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras breathes. “Grantaire, wait, wait, wait, Grantaire,” he says, and he doesn’t pull Grantaire away, so Grantaire just pulls off but stays close.

“Mhm?” There is a bruise, where he had been, fresh and red. 

And-

And Enjolras is sliding his hands up and under Grantaire’s tee-shirt, and they are warm and soft and Grantaire, he  _ startles. _

“Fuck!” he bites out, grabbing for his hands before he even has time to wonder what the  _ hell _ is wrong with him. Fuck, this shouldn’t even be an issue, he doesn’t know what Enjolras wants with his shirt--nobody wants him fucking naked, anyways.

Enjolras freezes. His hands, in Grantaire’s, are tense, locked. “I’m sorry,” he says, eyes big and round and  _ too much _ . (Grantaire wants more, he wants it so bad.) “I… I don’t really know what I’m doing,” he admits. 

Grantaire clears his throat. “You’re fine,” he says, like it isn’t the understatement of the year. He  _ is _ fine, it’s just… He doesn’t  _ get  _ it.

“I wanted-” His hands are still under Grantaire’s shirt, and he steps forward again, flexes his fingers in Grantaire’s grasp. “Please, please, Grantaire.”

“What,” Grantaire says with a laugh that’s choked, breathy. “What, me? Come the fuck on, Enjolras. You don’t want anything that you don’t already have, can we put it like that?” He really doesn’t need Enjolras realizing he made a mistake, here.

But-

But Enjolras lets out a petulant groan, and Grantaire can feel him flex his fingers in the air. “Okay,” he says, but he looks so disappointed, and his face is so damn  _ expressive _ , sometimes. “Sorry.”

And fuck, it’s not like Grantaire can do anything against that. “Fine,” he says. “Fucking- Fine. Do what you like.” He releases Enjolras’s hands, drops his own, only-

Only, he doesn’t move. He doesn’t lay his hands on him. He doesn’t drop the furrow from his brow. “I- Are you sure?” He asks. 

Grantaire wants to kiss him, that’s all. “Well, fuck, Apollo,  _ I’m  _ not the one who’ll mind, am I?’

He still hasn’t moved. “Are you?” He withdraws, even now.

And fuck, you know, this isn’t what Grantaire wanted, either. He doesn’t want a discussion about feelings, and he doesn’t want for Enjolras to fucking  _ think  _ about this too much, and he doesn’t want Enjolras to fucking leave. “Fuck,” he says, because honestly, enough is enough. “Fuck, fine, you know what?” He pulls his shirt off over his head, throws it in the vague direction of his hamper. “It’s  _ fine. _ ” And he turns back.

And Enjolras is  _ staring _ .

God, this is why he didn’t want to. This is why this whole thing is easier when Grantaire keeps his clothes on--nobody wants to see-

“Grantaire,” Enjolras mumbles. His gaze is fixed on Grantaire’s chest, and he knows what he looks like, okay, he knows that he doesn’t compare to Enjolras, not by whole orders of magnitude, and-

Enjolras rests a hand on Grantaire’s bare chest and leans forward and kisses him hard. “Grantaire,” he says again, slurs it against Grantaire’s lips. “I have to tell you something,” he says, but he won’t let up, and Grantaire is caught up in so much--the slow, steady movement of his hand over his chest, the press of skin against skin, the way that Enjolras kisses, all passion--so he can’t be blamed for not stopping, either.

Enjolras walks him backwards with a few shuffling steps until the backs of Grantaire’s knees hit the mattress. “I really don’t know what I’m doing,” he breathes. “Grantaire?”

Grantaire frowns. “Like…” He swallows, pulls back for a moment. “Like, you don’t want to?”

“No!” Enjolras, apparently, was not so out of it as Grantaire had thought. “No, um, I- I haven’t exactly-”

And-

Oh. Grantaire knows what this is. “You haven’t been with a man before.” Makes sense, then, if Enjolras is just trying. Grantaire’s a good trial run. “It’s okay, I’ll-”

“No!” Enjolras sits down on the bed with a thud. He scrapes a hand through his hair. He’s half-hard; Grantaire can see the line of his cock, pressed against his pants. “I’ve been with men, you know, I just haven’t-” He clears his throat. “I haven’t, um-”

“You’ve never fucked anyone before,” Grantaire hears himself say. The words echo through his brain, rid of all other thoughts. “You want to fuck me.” That’s another thing that he can’t get out of his head. A logical inconsistency. Grantaire shouldn’t be anyone’s exception. Enjolras, yes--he is made to be an exception. Grantaire just bakes bread. He’s too fucking hard for this shit.

Enjolras is still looking at his chest, but now it feels a little more like anxiety than… whatever it was before. (He still can’t place it.) “Yes,” he says.

Grantaire sits down beside him on the bed. “You can,” he says. “I’ll tell you what to do.” Like it’s a favor. Like Grantaire isn’t acting out of self interest, here. Like the idea of Enjolras, so close to him, isn’t making his heart feel a little weak. 

“Oh,” says Enjolras, but he doesn’t move, he just twists his hands restlessly and fixes his gaze somewhere near Grantaire’s shoulder, so Grantaire does what he can and he takes Enjolras’s hands in his own and he kisses him. 

_ Christ _ , but it’s fucking good. Enjolras kisses like-

He kisses like nobody else Grantaire has ever kissed before, or maybe  _ he’s _ just unlike anyone Grantaire has ever kissed before. 

Enjolras doesn’t pull his hands from Grantaire’s but he does tug Grantaire’s hands along with him when he goes to grasp at the hem of Grantaire’s sweatpants. “Hey,” he says. “Do you think we could-” He brushes a kiss just past Grantaire’s lips, just off-center. He’s distracted.

Grantaire can’t focus on anything but the way it feels when he touches him. “Sure.” He stands to kick off his pants, to toss them off to the side, and when he turns back-

Enjolras, his Apollo, is leaned back against the blankets, clad in naught but the light from Grantaire’s shitty lamp and that which comes from the hall, and Grantaire has never seen a sight so stunning. Enjolras is warm and golden and hard, his cock heavy against his thigh, and Grantaire aches somewhere deep in his gut with how much he  _ wants  _ him. Wants to touch, although he’s not quite sure that that will be enough, anymore. Wants to hold.

“Fuck,” Grantaire breathes. “Apollo, fuck, I-” he swallows.

He’s not quite sure that he is going to make it through this in one piece. Worth it, worth it.

“Please,” he tries again. Enjolras is watching him, his gaze fucking  _ searing _ . Warm, too. “Please, can I-”

Enjolras, bless him, nods.

Grantaire does not recognize his own nerve when he permits himself to lie down beside him, his statue. (Not  _ his,  _ not truly--he knows that. Not his to keep, but, at the very least, his for the night. It’s enough, he tells himself.) “So,” he says, and he’s proud of the way his voice very resolutely does not shake.

“You have to tell me what to do,” says Apollo. “What you want.” 

He reaches a hand up to touch Enjolras’s cheek. He can’t stop fucking  _ looking _ .

“ _ Grantaire _ ,” Enjolras says. His eyes fall shut, for a moment. “Grantaire, I don’t  _ know _ .”

“‘S cool,” Grantaire murmurs. He can feel himself leaning in, can feel hot skin only centimeters away. “Let me?”

And Enjolras, he says, “Yeah,” all breathy and soft, and Grantaire kisses him, and it’s  _ more,  _ now. All bare skin and muscle and all.

And-

Well, he said he’d show Enjolras what to do.

He moves to lie atop him, to kiss him against the mattress, and he’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it isn’t-

He isn’t expecting Enjolras to  _ moan _ , deep in his throat, and to grasp at Grantaire like he means to leave bruises, and to let himself be pressed down against the comforter without resistance, without a fight. He isn’t expecting Enjolras to- to shift, slightly, so that Grantaire’s thigh is between his legs, and to grind up with a shameless groan.

(Grantaire realizes, with a bit of a start, that he is not going to last very long at all. Not with Enjolras beneath him like this, not with him  _ watching _ .)

He fumbles for his nightstand, for the handle of the second drawer down, and that breaks the kiss but all Enjolras does is keep mouthing at his cheek, at his jaw, at his neck, and maybe,  _ maybe _ if Grantaire focuses really hard on looking for lube and a condom he’ll be able to stop the moan that’s rising in his throat. 

(He can’t, as it turns out, but at the very least, he finds the supplies.)

“Here,” he says, though it takes all his willpower to pull back, to break Enjolras’s lips from his skin. Enjolras looks up at him, eyes wide. Grantaire presses the lube and the condom into one of his hands. 

“How do you-”

How, indeed. Grantaire knows what he wants--he can hardly  _ breathe  _ with just how much he wants, needs, Enjolras above him, on him, against him. He needs to kiss him again, mostly, and that’s dangerous, he knows, because this isn’t his to keep, but that doesn’t stop him from  _ wanting. _

He’s trying not to be selfish, though. To give Enjolras what he wants. “Um,” he draws in a breath. “I could be on my hands and knees,” he says. “If you- If you want that.”

Grantaire doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but it’s hard not to be disappointed when Enjolras’s face drops, just enough for it to be noticeable, for it to sting. “Oh,” says Enjolras.

He scrambles to make it better. “Or, or not,” he blurts out. “Whatever you want. However you want it.”

“I wanted-” Enjolras swallows. He’s watching Grantaire’s mouth. “I wanted you on your back.” It’s brash, blunt, sudden. It makes Grantaire flash hot. “I wanted to kiss you.”

“Okay,” says Grantaire, like his heart hasn’t just stuttered in his chest. “Okay. Like that, then.” Like that. He can do that. He can do that, fucking  _ gladly _ .

He gets onto his back, works a pillow under his hips, spreads his legs. It’s been a while since he last did this, he thinks distantly. Or, a while since he’s been with anyone; even longer since he let another man fuck him. Longer still since it happened sober. It’s all a bit much, under the heat of Enjolras’s gaze, but, well-

If Enjolras doesn’t like it, doesn’t like  _ him _ , Grantaire will probably never see him again, anyways. And that takes a bit of the pressure off, only-

Only, Grantaire  _ wants _ him to like it. To like him.

“Enjolras,” he says, because Enjolras isn’t moving, and then Enjolras moves.

“Sorry,” he says, but he’s already folding himself over Grantaire like a rising dawn. “Sorry, yeah, let me-” He fumbles for the lube--he’d set it down. “I know the basics, I’m not totally clueless, I just need you to tell me what,” he fades off, deigns to look down upon Grantaire.

“What I like,” Grantaire finishes for him, in a voice he does not know.

“Yeah.”

Easy, thinks Grantaire. He can think of something he likes. “Okay,” he says, instead of begging for something, anything, more.

Easy, thinks Grantaire, and then Enjolras kisses him, and-

And-

And, oh, fuck, Grantaire is not going to be very much use at all. Enjolras kisses  _ deep _ , deep and fast and hot and Grantaire does his very best to keep up, but then Enjolras gets a hand on his cock and strokes him, solid and  _ good _ , and Grantaire is left floundering, clutching at Enjolras’s back and kissing back only in approximates.

He has a hand in Enjolras’s hair, somehow. He’s holding far too tightly for something that is so soft, but he cannot bring himself to loosen his hold. After all, Enjolras just keeps kissing him, keeps jerking him off, keeps-

Enjolras breaks away by a centimeter at most, breath hot on Grantaire’s cheek as he speaks. “Grantaire,” he says, and Grantaire  _ keens _ . He cannot manage words; he cannot even manage much more than the moment in which he exists, and even that is pushing it. 

He is being kissed again, brief and almost chaste, and then he is not.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says again, and his voice is just sharp enough to drag Grantaire marginally closer to lucidity. 

“Apollo,” Grantaire chokes out. He opens his eyes--he hadn’t even realized they’d been closed--and above him is nothing but golden curls and skin like bronze and eyes that do stupid, stupid things to his heart, and he goes in for a kiss but misses, planting it somewhere near his jaw. No great loss, all things considered, he thinks hazily. “God, Apollo,” he says.

“Not my name,” he says, and he doesn’t sound all there, either. “Hey, Grantaire, can I-”

“Yeah.” Grantaire  _ wants _ . He has never wanted like this, never. “Go on, I’ll- I’ll tell you. What I like.”

Enjolras chokes back a groan, but Grantaire can still feel it against his lips. “And you’ll tell me if you don’t like something? If I do it wrong?”

“I’d like anything you did to me,” Grantaire breathes, only he didn’t mean to say it out loud. Oh, well. It’s true, anyways. Even back in the kitchen, when he thought he’d meet his end by Enjolras’s kind hand and his best chef’s knife, he’d liked it, a little.

Enjolras breaks the kiss. It stings. “Grantaire,” he warns.

“I’ll tell you,” he says, because it’s a moot point, anyways, isn’t it?

“Thank you,” says Enjolras, always too formal, and then-

And then there’s a finger, gentle but steady, at his entrance, and the lube is a little cold but it doesn’t fucking matter. 

“Yeah?” Enjolras has stopped moving and Grantaire thinks that he is going to cry. He’s hardly touching him at all, now, aside from the way they’re pressed together.

“Yes, fucking  _ yeah _ , Apollo,” he hisses, too sharp, but Enjolras doesn’t flinch. “Just-” he swallows. “Just, come  _ on _ .”

And he would say more, he could talk for hours, only then, just then, Enjolras kisses him and slides the finger in, steady still, and Grantaire can do nothing but hold tight and wish, beg, for more. “Apollo,” he groans.

And Enjolras, merciful Enjolras, hears him. He doesn’t think he actually spoke, mind, but Enjolras must have heard him, because he adds a finger, moves a little faster, and it’s almost right, almost, just-

He squirms, struggling for the right angle, and Enjolras pulls back. “Am I-”

“Fine, fine,” Grantaire says, because he doesn’t want Enjolras to leave. “Only- Only, um, if you- If you crook your fingers, a little? It’d-” He doesn’t have time to muffle his moan when Enjolras actually fucking does it. 

_ Christ _ .

“Okay,” Enjolras mumbles against his lips. “Better?”

Grantaire gasps, lets himself track sloppy, open-mouthed kisses down Enjolras’s jaw, because he doesn’t trust himself to work out how to kiss, anymore, and because he really, really, really wants Enjolras to keep talking to him. “Mm,” he tells the curve of Enjolras’s throat, the fine skin there.

Enjolras makes a sound that Grantaire is pretty sure is going to be wedged somewhere in his brain until the day he fucking dies. He wants more, still, and he wants- He wants, somewhere deep within himself, to leave some kind of mark, and so when Enjolras next crooks his fingers just so, Grantaire lets himself bite down, lets himself muffle his groan in hot skin, and Enjolras  _ whines _ .

“You can-” Grantaire draws in a breath. “You can do more.”  _ Please _ , he doesn’t add. His heart is already beating double-time, as it is. He liberates a hand from Enjolras’s hair, if only to slide it down to his cheek and to feel the curve of his cheekbone, of his brow. 

“Grantaire,” he says, soft and wondrous, and Grantaire doesn’t even have time to think about that, because he adds a third finger beside the first two, and-

_ Oh. _

Um.

Yeah, that’s what he’s been wanting. Needing. (Nearly.) He arches up into it, muttering nonsense that will surely get him into trouble somehow, but that’s alright, because he’s fairly certain that any and all fragments of his pride have simply up and left. “God,” he chokes out.

Enjolras shifts a little closer, buries his face in Grantaire’s hair. His lips are moving, have been moving, but it takes Grantaire just somewhat too long to tune in to catch all of it, but he gets the gist--something about  _ too much,  _ and  _ wonderful, so good,  _ and  _ gorgeous, Grantaire _ , and he can’t help the way he writes beneath him, grapples at him with clumsy hands until they are at eye level once again and then they’re kissing and Enjolras is making soft little sounds into Grantaire’s mouth and Grantaire has always liked Enjolras’s hands, the way they stay busy, and the thought of-

“Wait,” Grantaire gasps, tugging at Enjolras’s curls. “Wait, wait, fuck, hold on.”

The fingers still inside him, and even so, he nearly comes. It takes everything he fucking has not to. “Sorry,” Enjolras says, and his eyes, which had been soft and bright and most importantly  _ on Grantaire _ , are wide and nervous. “Are- Are you okay?”

“‘S good,” he chokes out. “Yeah, just-” swallows. “Was gonna come.”

“Oh,” Enjolras murmurs, or maybe his lips just form around the word. 

Grantaire can feel every single bit of Enjolras’s fingers inside of him. “Do you still want-” he shifts, just a bit, just to prove a point. It sends a jolt up his spine. “Want-” He can’t quite-

“Yeah,” breathes Enjolras. “Yes.” He draws his fingers out of Grantaire, and he does it gently, so gently, but Grantaire mourns the loss, anyways.

“Cool,” he gasps out against Enjolras’s lips. 

“Cool,” Enjolras says back, with a breathless laugh that makes Grantaire need, if possible, even more than he did before. “Yeah, hey, um, Grantaire-” Grantaire can hear the snap of the lube being opened, _ Christ _ \-- “are you?”

He’s missed something. “Huh?” He looks around blearily.

“You ready?” 

Is he fucking ready. He’s  _ been _ ready. “Mmhmf,” he says, ever eloquent.

“Cool,” Enjolras echoes again, and then-

Then-

He enters him slow, careful,  _ good _ . He’s  _ good _ . Grantaire has had bigger, before, but that doesn’t fucking matter because he never wants to feel anything other than this again. This is it, he thinks, ragged and in the back of his mind. This is it. This is all.

He is aware, now, of the fact that he is gasping for breath, grappling at Enjolras’s shoulders. He can’t help it, not with-

Enjolras presses in closer and Grantaire feels every fucking  _ centimeter _ of him. Every bit of skin pressed up against his thighs, every point of contact. Enjolras has one hand clenched tight at his ribs and it hurts, almost, but Grantaire wants him to hold tighter. 

He heaves a breath. “Apollo.” He needs, he  _ needs _ , he- “Please, please, Apollo, c’mon, it’s good, it’s good, I like it,” another breath. “You said tell you what I like, I like it, please just fucking  _ move _ , Apollo, I-”

“‘S not my name,” Enjolras presses into the side of Grantaire’s neck, but his hips kick forward minutely--a trial of the real thing, and it sends a jolt up Grantaire’s spine.

He groans. “Enj.” He can pull no other thoughts from his mind, none at all. If this doesn’t work, doesn’t get him moving, he’s done for. “Enjolras.”

And Enjolras, blessed, divine Enjolras, moves. He thrusts forward slow but fucking  _ steady,  _ and his hips roll to press to Grantaire’s, and Grantaire shuts his eyes against the wonderful heat and-

And then,

And then,

And then he fucking  _ fucks  _ him. He thrusts in steady and hard and unrelenting, and maybe if Grantaire were someone else, if he were  _ with _ someone else, it would be too much, but as it is, he can’t see how he could possibly be satisfied with anything else. Grantaire, he knows nothing but the slam of Enjolras’s hips, the drag of his cock in his ass, the hands on his ribs and his knee. 

He opens his eyes. He shouldn’t have, probably, if he was looking to last, but now that he has he feels he’ll never be able to shut them again without the image of his Apollo marking the inside of his eyelids. “Oh, God,” he hears himself groan. He is mouthing absently at Enjolras’s neck--he can’t bring himself to stop.

“Okay?” asks Enjolras, and he’s watching Grantaire with an intensity that makes his lungs hitch tight. “Too much?”

Grantaire lets his head fall back against the pillows with a moan. “You can-” he knows what he wants, but he shouldn’t say it, he knows, and yet- And yet his lips form the words, anyways. “More. If you-” he gasps.

Gasps, because Enjolras has driven forward into him harder, and he is moving faster, now, and he has shifted the angle and he is ramming hard into Grantaire’s prostate and Grantaire can do nothing but make embarrassing sounds in the back of his throat because Enjolras is kissing him, mouthing up and down his neck, biting at his jaw and his collarbone, and  _ fuck _ . 

He, he decides, never wants sex with anyone else, ever again. Enjolras is not his to keep, but that’s alright, because if he can’t get this again, can’t get Enjolras’s warm skin and his soft words and everything else golden about and around him, he will simply go off and live as a monk somewhere deep in the woods. It’s alright. 

He becomes gradually aware of the fact that he is mumbling nonsense, everything and anything, to the beat of Enjolras’s thrusts, and he doesn’t even know what he says to make Enjolras’s eyes fucking flash like that, but it must have been- been  _ something _ .

(Grantaire thinks, not-so-distantly, of-- Of Enjolras in the bakery, that morning, and of Grantaire being sure that he was reaching for a knife; of the jut of his jaw and the line of his shoulders; of fear and sunlight and the way his heart is always fucking pounding; of that very first morning, of the two men on the street with guns and Enjolras falling into his arms; of the improbability of all of this.)

“Are you going to kill me?” He chokes out, around a particularly stunning thrust and a bite at his throat.

It’s really a fair question, he thinks, but Enjolras pulls back, brow furrowed. He does not, thank the Lord, stop the pounding of his hips. “I- What?”

Grantaire is seriously going to come too soon. “Oh, God,” he says. He needs more, needs-

He leans up to steal a kiss, off-center and hot and messy at best. 

“Hey, hey, Grantaire,” Enjolras murmurs against his lips. Grantaire can’t even fucking  _ think _ . His cock is so fucking hard. “Grantaire, what?”

He needs Enjolras to not stop. “‘S okay,” he mumbles. “I like it, okay?” 

He still sounds too concerned--strange; Grantaire figures  _ he _ ought to be the one who’s concerned, but mostly, he just needs to come. “Grantaire-”

Grantaire steals another kiss and grapples for Enjolras’s hand and guides it down to his cock, because he needs-

He needs-

He’s jerking him off, now, his grip tight and hot and-

His hips stutter; the rhythm is nearly lost, now. Grantaire doesn’t mind that, either, and-

There is a heat rising in his stomach faster than he can push it back down, and- “Enjolras,” he chokes out, and he comes. 

He comes between them, between their stomachs, and it’s- It’s  _ bright _ , too much, golden; it’s something utterly new and Grantaire is left gasping up at the ceiling; it’s enough to draw him away from himself for God knows how long. Enjolras fucks him through it all, kisses him deep and sweet. 

When it’s over, when he is back to himself, he is loose-limbed and lying back on the bed. Enjolras has stopped moving above him, but he is still hard, still in him. Still watching. His hips twitch--a break in resolve, and Grantaire wants it to happen again. Wants just a hair more.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is scrubbed raw. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras grits out. His hips twitch again. Grantaire raises a hand to settle it on Enjolras’s cheek, hot and slick with sweat. “What do you- What should I-”

“Keep going,” says Grantaire, because if Enjolras stops now he’s pretty sure he’ll cry. “Keep fucking me, it’s alright.”

Enjolras moans, deep and pained and lovely. Grantaire cannot help but to kiss him. “You want that?” he asks. “You’ll like it?”

God, fucking understatement of the year. “Yeah,” he mumbles against Enjolras’s lips. “I’ll like it.”

“Okay,” says Enjolras, and then he moves. Not quite so fast, so hard--he is gentle, cautious, and he has lost some of the steadiness from before. He is touching Grantaire, running his hand up and down his side. It’s fucking  _ good _ . 

Grantaire can’t say if it takes five seconds or three minutes--he is out of it, to some degree, lost in the shift of hips and the feel of skin against skin and the way Enjolras looks above him--but Enjolras breaks the kiss and groans, “Fuck, Grantaire, I-” and he comes.

After, when Enjolras has collapsed against him as a heavy, warm weight and Grantaire is already half-asleep, he hears Enjolras say, soft as anything, “Wow.”

Grantaire laughs. It jostles Enjolras where he lies. Enjolras just nestles closer.

They’ll talk tomorrow morning, Grantaire figures. He doesn’t even have to wake up early. They’ll talk then.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep--he means to stay up a little longer, to watch, but he is out cold before he even has time to pull the blankets atop them both in the hot summer night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is getting much longer than i thought it would lmao somebody stop me
> 
> the mortifying ordeal of knowing your scary crush's name and then accidentally being unable to stop calling him apollo and u can no longer mask ur idolatry in ignorance and it becomes a conscious choice :^/ (u are grantaire and a fool)


	4. July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire wakes.  
> He doesn’t know why, at first--his alarm didn’t go off, and he has no reason to be awake. He had been dreaming--something soft, heady; something about curls against sheets and bright eyes and kind, firm hands. It had been a nice dream, and not one that would wake him, and it’s quiet, too, aside from the quiet bustle of the street below his window and-  
> And the sound of someone taking, fast and low, in the other room.

Grantaire wakes.

He doesn’t know why, at first--his alarm didn’t go off, and he has no reason to be awake. He had been dreaming--something soft, heady; something about curls against sheets and bright eyes and kind, firm hands. It had been a nice dream, and not one that would wake him, and it’s quiet, too, aside from the quiet bustle of the street below his window and-

And the sound of someone taking, fast and low, in the other room.

His eyes snap open. The early light of day is jarring--he is not used to it coming on so suddenly, and he squints, and-

The other side of the bed is empty. Apollo-- _Enjolras_ \--is gone, leaving nothing but a dent in the covers and a tender spot on Grantaire’s ribs and an ache just below them.

Fuck.

He scrubs a hand over his face. God, he’s an idiot. He _knew_ this would happen, knew Enjolras wasn’t his to keep. Knew that once he had the files back, that would be it. Knew that this was repayment, simple as that, it just-

It just fucking stings.

He sits, scrubs a hand through his hair. Here he’d been, thinking about _breakfast._ About _talking_. 

Dumbass. 

Someone is still talking in the other room. Enjolras. Enjolras is talking in the other room, still low. Still panicked. 

Probably, Grantaire realizes, he should just stay here--pretend to be asleep, let Enjolras leave unbothered. He knows that. Honest, he does, it’s just-

He hears Enjolras saying goodbye to whoever he’s on the phone with-

Fuck, he just can’t. He’s selfish, okay, that’s common fucking knowledge. He _wants_ , and if he can do nothing else, he can _try_. He stumbles to his feet, pulls his sweatpants on with fumbling hands. He has to fucking try. Maybe- Maybe he can get Enjolras’s number, or something. God, he doesn’t know, maybe he can get a date. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he can see him again. 

It’s worth a fucking shot, he figures, as he opens the bedroom door. Worst case scenario, he’ll make an ass of himself and he’ll never see Enjolras again, but hey, isn’t that what would have happened, anyways?

He wonders where Enjolras is, actually--the kitchen, maybe, or maybe by the door. Or, fuck, hiding in the bathroom or something or-

Oh.

Oh.

The door to the studio is half open, and Grantaire _knows_ he keeps it closed. 

His heart is, suddenly, pounding. (Did he leave the portrait uncovered? There’s a sketch on the easel-- is it in plain sight? God, this was a bad idea. Of course he’s too much.)

He tugs off the band-aid--opens the door. 

Enjolras stands in the middle of the studio, staring at the image of his own face staring back at him. He startles at the creak of the hinges, and looks to Grantaire with wide, wide eyes.

“Enjolras,” Grantaire gasps.

He narrows his gaze. There is a certain tension to his shoulders that, Grantaire thinks distantly, is hard to explain, even given the circumstances. “Grantaire.”

He swallows. He really wishes he had put a shirt on. (He really wishes Enjolras had put a shirt on, at least for the sake of the conversation. It’s a little distracting.) “I can explain,” he chokes out. Explain what, he’s not quite sure. That he’s a fucking creep? That it’s not his fault, he just can’t get Enjolras out of his head? That- that inspiration cannot be wrangled, or some dumbass shit like that? “I can-” Fuck, fuck, what should he _say_? “I can explain,” he repeats, uselessly.

“Are you working for someone?” It’s cold, harsh--jarring, after last night. He had forgotten, it seems, why he used to be so wary. He remembers, now.

It takes him a few moments to draw words from the air--the non-sequitur threw him just far enough off-balance that he cannot recover. “I- What?”

Enjolras takes a step forward. His hands are shaking. There is a grit to his jaw. “Who are you working for?”

“Enjolras,” Grantaire says, voice weak. “I’m not-” God, what is he even talking about? Grantaire is many, many things, most of them negative, but he wouldn’t- wouldn’t-

“Is that why you slept with me?” His breath is coming fast, jagged, and Grantaire wishes he knew what to say. 

“What?” He can’t breathe. “Enjolras, no, I-”

“Don’t bullshit me, Grantaire,” he hisses, and he’s shoving past Grantaire and making for the bedroom and Grantaire feels a little bit like he’s about to cry. Enjolras is muttering under his breath as he rummages for his shirt among the refuse on Grantaire’s floor- “Fucking stupid, leaving the files with a fucking _stranger_ -” he grits out, pulls the shirt on, fumbles for the buttons. “God, and I told you my fucking _name_ , and-” He pushes out of the bedroom. His shirt is buttoned wrong. 

Grantaire trails after him helplessly. There is an ache in his gut--like Enjolras really had stabbed him, last night. “I’m not working for anybody,” he says, uselessly, as he rounds the corner. Enjolras is tugging his shoes on with trembling hands.

“I’m not an idiot,” Enjolras spits. He can’t seem to get his shoes tied right. “You probably- probably looked at the files, anyone would, and made a couple calls, tried to get a couple bucks out of it-” he stands, in an instant, strides forward, and he is, suddenly, _close_.

Grantaire shakes his head uselessly. “I didn’t-” It’s all happened so fast. 

Enjolras scrubs across his cheek with the back of his hand. The sun hasn’t come in through the hall window, yet, and it’s hard to tell, in the dark, if he’s really crying or if it’s a trick of the light. It’s hard to imagine, either way. He’s terribly, impossibly close. “Where are the files?” There’s something dangerous in his gaze, and Grantaire is sure, he’s certain, that he isn’t imagining it, not this time. 

“You-” his voice sticks in his throat. “You left them on the hall table.” _When you kissed me_ , he wants to add. 

Enjolras’s eyes narrow. (Grantaire can’t help but to think of the way he’d looked at him last night--soft and desperate and wanting. He doesn’t know what the fuck he did.) He stalks to grab the files, then goes back to stand so close to Grantaire and-

(And Grantaire wonders, floundering, if he’s going to kiss him again, only-)

“If you fucking tell anyone-”

Grantaire’s hands rise nearly to his face, desperate to appease, to calm, but he knows better than to touch. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t,” he mumbles, tripping over the words, but-

“I’ll fucking know,” says Enjolras, and then he’s left with nothing but the slam of the door. 

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck.

He stumbles to his bedroom and pushes open the shutters if only to slump hopelessly against the balcony as he watches Enjolras storm out of the building and into a waiting car. He doesn’t look up. And then the car is gone, turned past the corner, and Grantaire-

Grantaire is never going to see Enjolras again. For real, this time. He doesn’t have the files anymore. God, Enjolras doesn’t even fucking _trust_ him anymore. He doesn’t even-

(Maybe, that horrible, irrational part of his brain supplies, something will happen. Maybe, maybe, if something happens, Enjolras will assume Grantaire told someone. Maybe, if that happens, he’ll come back to- to do what he needs to, to make good on his threat, and Grantaire will see him again.)

He shakes his head to rid it of the thought. Besides, he doesn’t really think he could handle it if Enjolras spoke to him like that again, looking at him like that again--all harsh and cold and furious. It still burns, in the empty spaces.

Grantaire slides along the windowsill until he is sitting down, leaning back against it, his head in his hands. 

Fuck.

Life, somehow, goes on. He wakes up early Monday morning, walks to the bakery, turns on the lights. He mixes dough and weighs out baguettes and scores them and works trays and trays of bread through the oven and takes the viennoiserie dough out of the fridge and he’s _fine_ , and he shapes the loaves and dumps them into the baskets when they’re done and-

“Grantaire!”

He jumps, drops the baguette he’d been holding--piping hot, fresh out of the oven--back onto the tray. “Fuck!” He whirls around to see-

To see Joly and Bossuet, already in the kitchen, watching him with a look that he knows all too well by now, thanks very much. Musichetta is there, too, bustling about the front of the bakery--she must have come in early, today. 

“What?” He hisses, too harsh. 

Joly just steps forward, the concern deepening on his brow. “You didn’t hear us say hi?”

He didn’t, actually. He grunts. “Got distracted.” He must have--he’s not quite sure that he isn’t still. God only knows when he’ll be able to rid his mind of- of big eyes, of curls, of Enjolras murmuring words soft against his lips, of- of-

Joly pokes at a tender spot on his neck with a gasp-

(Of Enjolras gritting out harsh words, too close and too early-)

“ _Grantaire_ ,” he breathes out, eyes wide. Bossuet is staring, too, now, and-

Oh. 

He’d forgotten.

Enjolras had left his mark, that night; he hadn’t even noticed until the following evening, and he’d forgotten, in the rush of the evening.

He feels his cheek flush pink. There is something sharp rising in his throat. “It’s nothing.” It’s a weak excuse, even in his own ears.

“ _Grantaire_.” Joly is biting back a smile. “Did you get laid instead of coming to movie night?”

Bossuet claps him on the back, and they’re both smiling, and-

And-

Grantaire feels his throat grow tight. “I-” He swallows, but it doesn’t help, and- “I, um-” he manages, and then he’s crying, curled in on himself like that’ll do anything for the fucking _empty_ bit in his chest. 

Because _fuck_ , he- He really fucked it up. He had a fucking chance with- with Enjolras, with the best fucking person he’d ever met, ever seen, and- and he fucked it up so bad he’ll never see him again, and-

He is distantly aware, past his heaving breaths, of Joly’s fluttering hands, of Bossuet grabbing for him and pulling him in close against his chest, of Musichetta setting something down in the front and coming in, but he can’t-

He heaves a sob against the fabric of Bossuet’s tee-shirt. (He can’t stop fucking _thinking_ about it, he can’t- He can’t-)

His knees go weak, and he goes to brace them, but Bossuet just pulls him down, easy, to the floor, lets him tuck his face into his shoulder, wraps his arms around him, close and warm and familiar. Joly settles somewhere to his side. He can feel Musichetta’s fingers combing through his hair.

God, he’s a pain in the ass. They all need to be working, they don’t have time for Grantaire to have a fucking breakdown while he’s supposed to be baking. He needs to get up, he needs to- “It’s okay,” he chokes out, but his breath is coming too fast, and he can’t stop the sobs rising in his throat. “It’s fine, I’m fine, I’m-” he heaves another thick sob, and it burns in his throat, burns like- like Enjolras’s touch had burned, only without any of the warmth.

Musichetta lets her hand settle between Grantaire’s shoulder blades, cool and still. “Grantaire,” she says, all soft and kind and sad, and God, he fucking loves his friends, and he doesn’t- he doesn’t know what to _do_ , so he gives in and slumps against Bossuet and lets himself cry.

A timer goes off. Musichetta gets up to quiet it. 

Joly rubs a hand over his back. “What was that one for?” He asks, voice low. 

“There’s-” he draws in a breath, shaking and shallow. “Loaves in the- in the oven.”

“I’ve got them,” Musichetta says, and he can hear her pulling the tray, setting it down, and it doesn’t fix anything, not really, but it’s a load off his mind. She, after, sits back down at his side.

He can’t quite stop crying, not yet, but he can reach out to take her hand and hold it, and he figures that’s better than nothing.

Grantaire can’t say how long it takes until his heart stops pounding, but he looks up when it does.

Joly has got his head resting on Grantaire’s shoulder, his hand in Bossuet’s. Musichetta is slumped against Bossuet, her fingers trailing through Grantaire’s hair. Bossuet has still got his arms around him. 

“Hey,” Joly raises his head up and off Grantaire at the movement, but he stays close. He looks a little teary-eyed, too. “What-”

“I let Enjolras fuck me,” Grantaire blurts out, too sudden.

They are all three silent. Musichetta’s hand drops from his curls. 

“Um,” Bossuet says, delicately. “Who’s Enjolras?”

Grantaire sits up, scrubs a hand across his eyes. “The- the _guy_. Apollo, he- he came to pick up the files on Saturday night. At my apartment.”

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Joly murmurs. There’s something akin to awe in his eyes; if Grantaire weren’t so fucking miserable he’s pretty sure he’d laugh. “And you just let him fuck you?”

Musichetta swats at Joly’s shoulder. “Did you give him your _address_?”

“He googled me,” Grantaire mutters. “And, no, I just took him to the bakery, to get the files, and I gave them to him, and then I thought he was going to, like, stab me, but he… He _kissed_ me, and-” he shrugs, wipes at his face again. His breath is still coming uneven; his face is still too hot. 

“And he fucked you,” Bossuet fills in, helpfully.

(It feels a bit like an understatement, to Grantaire. Surely, surely, that cannot be all. Surely it had to have been something more, for him to feel like he does, now.) “Yeah,” he says, anyways, “And he fucked me.”

“Christ,” says Musichetta. “Grantaire, are you, like… Are you okay?”

Grantaire shrugs, gives a watery smile. “Am I ever?”

Joly does not seem to appreciate his joke.

He sighs. “I just-” He scrubs a hand through his hair. “It’s weird.”

“But-” Bossuet starts, but he can’t seem to continue.

Musichetta picks up the line for him. “You wanted it, though, right?”

He hears himself let out a ragged slip of laughter. Oh, God, did he ever. “I wanted it,” he says, although that doesn’t capture any of it. Grantaire wanted him, needed him, like- like-

(Like, his brain provides, that one summer Grantaire had worked landscaping off a favor of a friend, before he got himself sacked, and it was so hot he’d thought he’d keel over, right, and the sun was drying, sapping, _hard_ , and what he’d really needed was a glass of water, but then the grocery a few doors down had set out the crates of new produce--peaches, cool from the inside of the truck and sweet and ripe, and he’d been hopped up on something, yeah, but even if he hadn’t been, he would have taken the fruit all the same, simply because he’d _wanted_ so bad. And he’d snatched one as he passed and shucked off his vest and ducked into an alley, out of the sun, and the teeth-to-flesh had been so good he’d stumbled to the filthy fucking ground, just so that he could think about nothing but the bite of it.

So.

Yeah, he thinks. He’d wanted it.)

They’re silent for a bit too long. Grantaire wonders, distantly, if he’d accidentally said that last bit out loud, but no, he hadn’t.

Joly is the one to speak up, first. “This could be good, though, couldn’t it?” he tries. “At least you know his name, now. And weren’t you hoping to, like-” he cuts off with a shrug, a hopeful look. “Did you get his number?”

Grantaire bites back the sudden thickness in his throat. “No.”

“Oh,” he says. “Do- Do you think he’ll come back?”

“No,” Grantaire says. No point in pretending otherwise, he figures. “No, I- I kind of really messed up.”

The three of them stay quiet, waiting. 

Fuck, whatever.

He sighs. “He thought I was working for somebody and that’s why I slept with him and he got freaked out because he told me his name and he thought I looked at the files but I _didn’t_ , and I told him I wouldn’t tell anyone anything but he didn’t believe me and, and he was so _angry,_ and-” he swallows. “And then he kind of threatened me a little bit and he took the files and left.”

Another silence.

“Oh,” says Musichetta. 

“Yeah,” says Grantaire. He stands, dislodging Bossuet in the process. “We should probably- We should probably keep working, anyways.”

“Okay,” she says, but she hugs him, anyway, and it helps, a little.

They get back to work.

The days pass slowly.

Grantaire dreams of bronze and gold, in the space between, and wakes up to empty sheets. He goes to work and bakes bread and comes home and paints. He tries to still his hand, at first--it hurts, to trace the contours of Enjolras’s face, to bring it into being time and time again, but it’s either that or do nothing at all. 

So, yeah. He paints. Paints the stoop of the bakery and Enjolras at it like it’s an altar, lit up by the streetlights and glowing, like he does--at least, the way he does in Grantaire’s memories. Paints him crumpled up in sheets; paints him sharp and solemn, brow stern; paints the way his hands twist together; paints the jut of his jaw in challenge. He can do nothing else.

It’s too much-- _he’s_ too much, but it doesn’t matter. He has already driven him away. He can do whatever he likes. 

Sometimes, he wakes up gasping and rock hard from a dream where the sex wasn’t even the fucking _point_ , not really. Sometimes, he jerks off as he grasps for the threads of the dream that slip away just as fast as he can reach for them; sometimes, he can’t bear to, and has to go stand under the icy stream of the shower until he can think again.

He hangs out at Joly and Musichetta and Bossuet’s place, some days. They’re gentle with him, too gentle--gentle like they haven’t been since he first started working with them. It’s strange. He wants, sometimes, to snap, to yell at them, to tell them that he’s _fine_ , that they don’t need to worry, that they don’t need to fucking look at him like that, only-

Only, he’s got the feeling that he wouldn't make it through that conversation with his heart intact, and they’re just trying to help, anyways.

Joly calls Grantaire from the bakery phone, one afternoon, when Grantaire’s already back from work but they’re all still there. He’s panicked, talking fast, and Grantaire is in the middle of making lunch, and-

“Hold on, hold on,” Grantaire says, cutting Joly off to tip the egg he was frying out of the pan and onto his sandwich. He takes a few quick bites--he’s got the feeling that this call is going to take a while, and he adores Joly, but he’s also starving. “Okay,” he mumbles, mouth still full. “Say again?”

Joly takes a deep breath, over the line. Grantaire waits for him to gather his words up off the floor. “You know my friend Jehan?”

Grantaire swallows. “Course I know Jehan.” He’d met them at a party, two years ago, give or take a few months. They’re sweet, odd, charming; Grantaire had kissed them, at some point, but he’s thought about it a lot, and he’s pretty sure it doesn’t count as weird, because Jehan had kissed just about everyone at the party, by that point. They follow each other on Instagram, chat every so often. (He likes Jehan a lot, actually--he should probably talk to them more.) “They’ve got a gallery, right?”

“Right,” Joly says, and he’s talking fast, again, but that’s just the way it goes, sometimes. “Right, and they just called me because a woman who was supposed to be in the show, she pulled out last minute, and they already have everything else up, and it totally screwed everything up, and they wanted me to ask you if you had anything ready for showing right now.”

Grantaire sets his sandwich down. Wh- “Me?” That can’t be right. He hasn’t had a showing in ages, and even when he was doing art more seriously, he wasn’t really in a state to be doing _anything_ , to put it kindly.

“They told me they follow you on Instagram. That they really like where you’re going with things, right now.”

Oh, Christ. “Oh, Christ,” Grantaire breathes. He fumbles to sit down. 

“Right?” says Joly, seemingly unaware of the fact that- that- that Grantaire’s heart is kinda fucking pounding away, here. “And I thought, hey, that’s a really good opportunity for you, cause I know you’ve been wanting to get your art back out there again, you know?”

“Christ, Joly,” he chokes out. And he tries to say something else--to explain why he can’t, or hell, to say _yes_ , even, but he can’t quite seem to manage it.

He, perhaps, waits just a moment too long. “Grantaire?” Joly asks, tentative. 

(He can hear, in the background, Bousset asking, “He okay, Jol?”; Joly’s muffled affirmative.)

“Yeah,” he finally brings himself to say. “Yeah, um, what?”

“Come on, R,” Joly prods. “Jehan really needs the help.”

And-

Honestly, who the fuck is he to say no to that? Who the fuck is he to simultaneously deny both Joly and Jehan, just because he gets freaked out, sometimes?

Grantaire scrubs a hand over his face. Fuck it. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, yeah, sure.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “It might be good.”

He can practically hear Joly’s smile over the phone. “It might just,” he says, and he can hear Bossuet and Musichetta chattering in the background. “You’ve got pieces ready?”

And-

Oh, shit.

Yeah, he has pieces ready. He’s got nothing _but_ fucking pieces ready. And he shouldn’t show them, he knows that--he’s got stuff in storage, he should really use that, instead, but-

Part of him--that horrid, too-much part of him, the one that makes him gasp for breath under Enjolras’s gaze and jerk off to it later-- _wants_ . Wants to show them. Wants to say, _look--look why I am broken now_. Wants to proclaim it all, now that it doesn’t matter.

That part of him’s always been a little too strong, anyways. 

He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says. “I think I’ve got a few I can use.”

Grantaire does the finishing touches on a handful of pieces, that week--signing them, touching up a few highlights, adding a handful of small accuracies. Frames them. Sets them out against a wall, just so that he can see them all together as they’d lay. They look nice. He thinks, distantly, that he might actually be proud of them.

In any case--it’ll be good to have them out of the apartment, at least for a little while.

He borrows Chetta’s sister’s boyfriend’s car to take the paintings to the gallery on a Sunday. It’s a small gallery, but way too nice for him to even step foot in, but Jehan greets him sweetly all the same. 

“Grantaire,” they gasp, once Grantaire has been thoroughly kissed on both cheeks. “Grantaire, Grantaire, you’re a lifesaver. You’ve saved mine and my lovely event’s lives.”

Grantaire, despite himself, smiles. “Anytime, Jehan.”

Jehan pulls a pout. “Oh, no promises you won’t keep,” they say, which comes out a lot more ominous than Grantaire had been expecting.

He shakes off the shock and shoves his hands into his pockets. “So, um, paintings?”

They nod firmly. “Yes, please.”

Grantaire gets the paintings out from the trunk, follows Jehan inside. And, fuck, it really is far too nice for him, but it’s too late, now. He passes Jehan the paintings for inspection.

They lay them out on the floor, step back, and-

“Grantaire,” they gasp. “Grantaire, have you found a _muse_?”

There’s a rueful laugh somewhere in his gut, but he just shakes his head. “‘S complicated, you know?” God, fuck, if it isn’t ever.

They let out a sympathetic hum, lay a hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright,” he says, and honestly, that shouldn’t mean very much at all, but-

But it helps, he thinks.

The gallery holds an opening the following Saturday night. Grantaire doesn’t want to go, not even remotely, but Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta make him, and they make him wear his one and only semi-acceptable outfit, too. And it’s all a bit much--this has never been Grantaire’s scene and it never will be--but at the very least, Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta linger close, cracking jokes and leaning on him and keeping him just distracted enough. 

Grantaire can’t help but to feel a little choked by it all, anyways. People keep _asking_ him shit--questions about the paintings, questions about future projects, questions about _artistic vision_ ; questions about the man in the paintings. He fumbles for answers as best he could and thanks the lord for the hand that Musichetta’s got tucked into the crook of his elbow, keeping him as grounded as could reasonably be expected, but it’s still a relief when-

“Grantaire,” Jehan gushes, pushing an elaborate cocktail into his hands. “Grantaire, how are you doing?”

He shrugs, does his best to quirk a smile. “As to be expected.” He takes a sip of the cocktail; it tastes of saffron and grapefruit and something fizzy. He thinks he likes it, but honestly, he can’t say for sure.

They take a sip of their own drink. “Well,” they say, and they lean in conspiratorially, and then they say- “You’ve gotten more than a few offers. Hefty ones, you know?” And Grantaire-

Grantaire freezes, somehow.

He hadn’t-

Surely-

“They’re-” His voice sticks in his throat. “They want-”

Jehan, bless their soul, reaches up to ruffle Grantaire’s curls. “Hardly a surprise. It was really only a matter of time.”

And-

Grantaire can’t quite say why, but his throat grows thick and his face blooms hot. God, this is fucking ridiculous. He’s just a baker, he doesn’t deserve for people to- to want his art, to really want it, to pay real money for it. He doesn’t deserve for people to gaze upon his wrought-out obsessions and think, _yeah, that’s the one, I’ll hang it in the parlor._ And yet-

“Thank you,” he chokes out.

Jehan just beams and drifts off to talk to one of the other artists.

That night, Grantaire sleeps over at Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta’s apartment, curled up close with the three of them on their too-small mattress. They go to bed easy--they’d had more to drink than he had, and he’s always had trouble sleeping, anyways, and once they’re all asleep and Grantaire is squished awkwardly between Joly and Musichetta, he stares up at the ceiling and thanks fucking God for his friends.

And then-

It’s a Wednesday, and it’s early, still, but that does very little to strip the heat from the air. It lingers, sticky and heavy, on the ground and across everything, and Grantaire curses it not-so-silently from where he sits at the front counter. He’s on cashier duty; Musichetta had had to run out for a meeting last-minute, and they were lower on viennoiserie than they were on baguettes, and so it was Grantaire who had to sit out, rumpled from the kitchen, and watch the front.

Darn it.

The front is fucking _boring_. He doesn’t know how Musichetta does it. Or why.

He’s _tired_. He doesn’t get tired in the kitchen, not unless he had a really bad night, but sitting out here is fucking draining. 

This sucks.

A woman comes in to buy some bread and a brioche. Grantaire thinks he processes the transaction correctly, but honestly, at this point, it’s anyone’s guess.

He sketches absentmindedly on the back of a receipt--nothing more than curls and the contours of a face, marked out in ballpoint pen. He’s given up on trying to convince himself to draw anything, anyone else. It’s like Jehan said, probably--he found his fucking muse, like it or not.

A man with a very small nose and a very large mouth comes in to buy two croissants and ends up lecturing Grantaire over something that he is, quite frankly, not emotionally invested in in the slightest. Afterwards, Grantaire very seriously considers abandoning his muse and sketching the man, instead, if only to preserve the bizarre shock of every facet of the interaction. He settles for doodling out a stick figure with a croissant in each hand and a mouth that takes up half its face, with a speech bubble that reads _Get off your phone!_

It’s something, Grantaire figures.

The morning drags on. 

He wonders just how long this meeting is going to _take_.

He slumps down on his forearms and doodles halfheartedly--Joly and Bossuet hanging off one another; Jehan in their elaborate gallery outfit; Musichetta dragging him out of the kitchen by the ear to make him work the cash register (only somewhat of an exaggeration). 

The door opens. Grantaire hears somebody enter, but they don’t greet him, so he figures he gets to be rude, too. He’ll look up when they wish him a good morning.

They stay silent. God, Grantaire hopes they’re not a _tourist_ or something. Surely there’s something in his job contract that says he doesn’t have to help tourists.

Still, they do not speak.

God, Grantaire hates working the cash register. He lifts his head with a sigh. “Can I help you?” he says, and he makes no effort to mask the annoyance in his voice, and he turns to face the fool in question, and-

And-

“Oh,” Grantaire chokes out. His face is hot, surely flushed red.

Enjolras stands in the center of the bakery, watching Grantaire. He has his hair tied back out of his face. His sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. There is a bag slung over his shoulder; he fidgets with the corner of an emerging newspaper as he waits.

Grantaire has never truly seen him in the sunlight; in the moment, he fears, nonsensically, that he will never truly see anything else ever again. Surely, surely, nothing could ever compare to this, to him. To the way the sun lights him up warm. To the curve of his wrist, where he holds the paper.

“Grantaire,” he says, and fuck, Grantaire didn’t think he’d ever hear him say his name ever again, considering the way things ended. Considering-

Actually.

Considering the way things ended, Grantaire wonders-

What is Enjolras doing here, anyways? Surely-

( _If you fucking tell anyone,_ Enjolras had said, had hissed out, and Grantaire _hadn’t_ , he wouldn’t, but he’d heard the threat. The intent.)

And now-

And now Enjolras is here. Here, and Grantaire hadn’t really ever thought that he would do anything, not _really_ , but God, he’d sounded like he meant it, that morning. And Grantaire didn’t tell anyone, but-

If anything happened, he realizes, and he feels strangely cold, now. If anything happened, he would be the one to blame. He had the files for two whole months; he didn’t look, but he could have. 

If anything went wrong, Enjolras would think that he ratted him out. That he told someone. That he was a- a fucking _spy_ , or some shit.

It should sound fucking stupid. It doesn’t.

Shit, Grantaire realizes.

This was not one of his best ideas.

His fingers twitch for his phone, but that would only get him into deeper shit.

Behind him, he can hear Joly and Bossuet in the kitchen. They’ve got music playing--Donna Summer, he’s pretty sure. He wonders if they’ll hear if-

He wonders if they’ll be in trouble, too, and-

Enjolras is still fucking _watching_ , and his hand is still on the paper--so close to the opening of his bag. 

God, he’s a fucking _moron_ , sometimes.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says again. Grantaire can’t remember the last time he convinced his lungs to draw in a breath. 

He swallows. He feels a little bit like throwing up. (He is, he thinks distantly, fucking terrified. He is really, really fucking scared right now.) He can’t stop looking at Enjolras. He-

“Grantaire!” Musichetta stumbles through the door to the bakery, waving a newspaper. She’s panting, warm from the July sun, and she breezes past Enjolras to Grantaire’s side before he can tell her to fucking _leave_ . “R, you’ll never believe this, I’m a fucking genius. The guy, Enjolras, he’s not in the fucking mob. He’s a _journalist_ , look, look,” she slams the newspaper down on the counter. Grantaire gets a flash of the headline--something about a scandal, about a medical company and criminal ties and-

“Chetta,” he manages. He still can’t tear his eyes off of Enjolras. “Chetta-”

Musichetta, finally, takes a breath. Looks up, turns to see the object of Grantaire’s gaze. Grantaire watches the recognition sweep over her like a wave. It mustn’t be hard--Enjolras looks so like _himself_ , at present; he looks so very golden. Grantaire has painted him for less. “Oh,” she says.

Grantaire nods mutely. His head is fucking ringing; he can’t parse her words for the fucking life of him.

“Oh,” she says again, and then she’s giving him a hasty pat on the shoulder and making for the kitchen, presumably to spy on him with her boyfriends.

And then they are alone. Grantaire and his Apollo.

“So,” says Enjolras.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Grantaire blurts out, because it’s worth a shot. “I swear, I fucking swear, I wouldn’t. I didn’t.”

Enjolras, bizarrely, has the gall to look _embarrassed_. It’s unnerving. “I know,” he says. “I kind of came here to apologize for that.”

What? 

“What?”

Enjolras gestures at the newspaper that Musichetta brought. “I published the article. I wanted to tell you that, too.” He waits.

Grantaire fumbles for the paper, wills himself to read. Because it’s there, right fucking there in small bold type in the byline-- _François-Marie Enjolras_. 

Proof, if you will. Of what, Grantaire has no fucking idea. 

He reads, as best you can--just what’s on the first page. He catches snippets--bribes to surgeons, money laundering, debts, mob ties, attempted murder. That’s enough to bring his gaze back to Enjolras.

“You’re a journalist,” he hears himself say. “You- you fucking wrote this. You broke the story.”

He nods. “I didn’t realize how big it all was until I was already too far in.”

Until he found himself stumbling down a side street at half four in the morning with a busted ankle and two armed men following him, Grantaire fills in.

“Oh,” says Grantaire.

“They finished up the trial a few days ago,” he says.

Grantaire struggles to process it all. Enjolras isn’t with the fucking mob. He’s probably not even an assassin. He’s a fucking _journalist_ , God, and he- he’s fucking _standing_ there, stunning in the summer morning, and he just needs to say something but it’s _hard_. “Congratulations,” he says, and he figures he could have done worse.

“Thank you,” says Enjolras. He’s still fiddling with the corner of the newspaper he’s got tucked into his bag.

He swallows. He doesn’t know what to fucking _say_ . “Really,” he says, because- because if he doesn’t say anything, Enjolras is going to _leave_ again. “Really, congratulations, that’s- that’s amazing. Doing real good in the world, aren’t you? Must have to, if only to make up for the miserable hours you had to spend in my kitchen to do it. Proves, doesn’t it? What you said about- about doing something, even though you’re scared. Cause you did, you know? I wouldn’t. I suppose I-”

“Why did you sleep with me?” It comes sudden, sharp, scared.

Grantaire’s rambling trips over itself, peters to a stop. “Wh-”

Enjolras is still fucking _watching_ him. “Why did you sleep with me?” he demands, again. 

He swallows. Christ, fuck, why did he _sleep_ with him? Why- God, that isn’t anywhere _near_ the real fucking question, is it? “I-”

“I saw your paintings.” Enjolras cuts him off. He reaches up to shove his hair back from his face--he must have forgotten it was tied back, and he does nothing but muss it. “The gallery owner is a friend of a friend, Courf texted me from the opening. And- and, they’re _me_ , and I knew that, I saw them in your apartment, and I thought- I thought you were giving information, fuck, I don’t know, and that made sense, it made sense for you to fuck me for information, only-” He draws in a breath, deep and ragged. “Only, you- you didn’t. Tell anyone. And- And you’re an artist, and it was just- it was just for the gallery?”

Grantaire doesn’t know what’s happening, but he nods.

“So-” Enjolras’s eyes are hopelessly wide, desperate. “So why did you-”

“I think you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” It comes out, easy as breathing. 

Enjolras, somehow, is struck dumb. 

Grantaire continues. If this is it, this is it. (What a way to go, he thinks, although hardly for the same reasons.) “I just-” he swallows, shrugs. “I just like you, you know?”

He’s not sure what he’s expecting. For Enjolras to leave, probably, although maybe a little more politely than last time. For him to let him down, gently but firmly.

He is not expecting-

He’s not expecting Enjolras to say, “Oh,” all breathless-like, and to drop his fretting hands, and to quirk just the faintest hint of a smile, tentative and awkward and fucking gorgeous. “I- You- Really?”

Grantaire shrugs, but he can’t help but to smile wryly in return. “Sure.”

“Combeferre thinks I’m stupid,” Enjolras blurts out. It’s jarring enough for Grantaire to drop his smile, just a little.

“What?”

Enjolras takes a step forward, runs a finger along the worn edge of the countertop. “I kind of- I’ve kind of been gone on you for a while. You’re really nice, you know? And I can’t stop- I can’t stop thinking about you, sometimes.” He shrugs. “Combeferre thought I was being stupid, with all the-” he gestures vaguely about his own head- “stuff.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” says Grantaire.

“Thank you,” says Enjolras. “I do- I do think I owe you an apology.”

Grantaire doesn’t think he owes him anything. If anything, Grantaire is surely the one indebted. “‘S fine,” he says, instead of fucking supplicating himself.

“I shouldn’t have-” He’s awfully close, now. Grantaire can’t quite say when that happened. “I was so scared. I thought I messed up the whole investigation, the whole case.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Grantaire. He doesn’t really know where Enjolras is going with this.

“I should have trusted you,” he says, which is ridiculous. Grantaire is not the sort of person who should be trusted.

“It’s fine.” Grantaire swallows. Enjolras’s hand rests so close to his own on the countertop. He wants, wants so badly, to reach out and touch. “I get it, you know? You didn’t have any reason to trust me. I just. I just make bread, yeah? Probably not the smartest person to put your faith in. So.”

Enjolras frowns. “That’s not true.”

Um. “No, yeah, Joly and Bossuet do all the viennoiserie, remember? I’m the bread guy.”

He scrubs a hand over his face. “No, I know you do the bread, just-” he sighs. (Grantaire, in an instant, is brought back to that night, to Enjolras breathing soft and heady against his neck, to the way he’d kissed him, all deep and warm. He shakes himself out of it as best he can.) “Just, I should’ve trusted you. You never gave me any reason not to, and you had no reason to help me at all in the first place but you did anyways, and I- I appreciate that. A lot.”

“Any time,” Grantaire breathes. “Any time at all. Anything you need.”

Grantaire watches the bob of Enjolras’s throat as he swallows. (He wonders if Enjolras remembers what he remembers--remembers him promising that, desperate in the dark of the bakery kitchen. Maybe, maybe.) “You trusted me,” Enjolras says.

“Yes,” says Grantaire, because that’s obvious, isn’t it?

“You thought I was with the mob,” says Enjolras. “When we were- You thought I was going to hurt you.”

“Yes.” That’s a little obvious, too, even though it seems foolish, now. It had never made sense, that Enjolras would do something like that. To Grantaire, that is.

“You confuse me,” says Enjolras, but he’s still so close. Grantaire watches, helplessly, hopefully, as his hand inches closer on the countertop. If Grantaire were braver, he figures he would reach out and close the distance for him. “You’ve always confused me.”

That’s ridiculous. Grantaire is very easy to understand. He is very little more than his pounding heart. 

He lists forward, just a little. He can’t help it. And he might just be caught up in it all, but-

But Enjolras draws in a breath, and his eyes flutter shut, and he’s leaning in, too, and-

The door opens with a shocking jingle of the bell, and Grantaire jolts back, reeling. 

“Good morning,” says whoever the fuck stands at the door.

Grantaire gulps. “Good morning,” he chokes out. What is he-

Musichetta, who is merciful and also _definitely_ an eavesdropper, bustles out of the kitchen with a fresh basket of croissants. “Good morning, can I help you?” She not-so-subtly nudges Grantaire away from the register. Enjolras stumbles after him, over so they’re looking at each other over the viennoiserie glass. 

“I-” Grantaire clears his throat. In the background, Musichetta is helping the customer. “I should get back to the kitchen.” It stings to say, like pulling the words from his chest have dislodged something a little more vital along with them.

“When do you get off?” Enjolras blurts out.

“I-” Surely, he can’t- He can’t- “I-”

Bossuet pops his head out of the kitchen. “We need him until noon.” He curses under his breath, then--Joly must have whacked him on the shoulder--retreats back into the kitchen.

Enjolras looks back to Grantaire, and there’s something hopeful and bold in his eyes. “Noon?”

He nods mutely.

“I’ll- I’ll let you get back to work.”

 _No,_ Grantaire wants to say; _Please, don’t leave_ , he wants to say, he wants to- to ask him for his fucking number, he wants to kiss him over the fucking viennoiserie case, but-

He doesn’t.

“Okay,” he says, instead. 

And Enjolars starts to turn to leave, then, and Grantaire doesn’t know what to fucking _do,_ except-

He fumbles to pull a pain aux raisins from the case. “Here, here, wait-” he passes it over the glass. “Not even stale this time, how about that?”

And Enjolras-

Enjolras _smiles_ , bright and timid, at first, but then just bright. “Oh,” he says. Grantaire can see the chip on his tooth. He takes the viennoiserie. “Oh. Thank you.”

“Yeah,” says Grantaire.

“I’ll let you get back to work,” he says, again, and then he is gone.

“Holy _shit_ .” Joly is on him in an instant, shaking him until his gaze can slip from the doorway. “Holy shit, Grantaire, _what_?”

Grantaire leans heavy against the viennoiserie case, draws in a deep breath. “I-”

“That was _him_ ,” Bossuet whispers, like it’s some kind of a secret. 

He nods weakly. “Yeah.”

“And he’s not even an assassin!” Musichetta, thank God, after having evidently hurried the customer out the door, joins them. “Grantaire, you know what that means!”

Grantaire’s not sure he knows what _anything_ means, not at this point. “I should get back to work,” he hears himself say.

“Gran _taire_ ,” Joly says. He’s still gripping tight to Grantaire’s shoulders. “You- He came back! This is good!”

He doesn’t understand. “He left.”

He groans. “He’ll be back, R. Obviously.” And-

What?

“What?”

“Grantaire,” says Bossuet. “He’s totally gonna come back at noon. Why do you think he asked when you get off work?”

That doesn’t make any _sense._ Surely Enjolras hadn’t meant- hadn’t meant that he _wanted_ anything, or anything like that. He said it himself--he came to apologize, and to tell Grantaire about the article. Right? “He- That’s not true.”

“ _R,_ ” Musichetta prods.

“That’s not-”

She groans. “Forget it, fine, go make some bread.” She nudges him off towards the kitchen. Grantaire goes hazily.

The rest of the morning is a blur. Grantaire feels like a bit of an idiot--there’s no point in him working himself up over nothing, over the fucking _possibility_ that Enjolras might come back, but he can’t quite get the message through to his stupid fucking heart.

He does his best, though. Does his best to forget it, to focus on getting loaves in and out of the oven. He burns himself, like, five times, but it almost works. He gets batches done and sent out; he gets into the rhythm of it all. And it’s not that he forgets, exactly, it’s just that-

It’s just that, he’s baking bread, and then he looks up and it’s noon.

“Oh,” he chokes out.

Bossuet claps a hand on his shoulder. “You go. We’ll take care of the batch in the oven.”

“Oh,” he says again, because- 

His heart is fucking pounding.

“You good, R?” Joly asks. 

He nods, but- “What if- What if he isn’t there?” He doesn’t- doesn’t _want_ that. He wants to see Enjolras again. He really, really wants to.

God, he’s fucking screwed.

Of fucking course Enjolras won’t be there. He doesn’t know who the fuck he’s kidding.

“He’ll be there,” Bossuet says, but-

He draws in a shaky breath. “But what if he isn’t?” His hands are shaking. “What if-”

Joly bundles him into a hug, brusque but warm. “Then you’ll be okay,” he says, and Grantaire just wants to bury his face in the crook of his neck for a little while, but- “Now leave, already, before he thinks you’re avoiding him and goes home.”

Fuck.

Whatever, okay, Grantaire can do this. Honestly, it doesn’t even matter if Enjolras is there or not. If anything, the closure might be good for him, and, really, Enjolras probably isn’t even as wonderful as he’s remembering, and doesn’t he serve his purpose as a muse perfectly well from afar, and-

Grantaire doesn’t-

He doesn’t see anyone at the door.

He-

Oh, he-

He isn’t there.

He isn’t-

“Grantaire?” Musichetta asks, too concerned. 

“‘S fine,” he manages. “Really, honestly, fine, you know? I’m just- I’m gonna go home.”

She frowns. “You sure?”

He shrugs. No, obviously, but-

But there is very little to do but to open the door and go home and take a fucking nap, or something. 

He walks home. Thanks God for how familiar the way is, because he’s not- he’s not really in a good mind to be walking anywhere else, all things considered. Thanks God his feet know the way, know to round the corner, there, to cross the street, to-

“Grantaire!” There is someone running after him, breathless and calling his name, and he knows that voice, but it can’t- “Grantaire, Grantaire, wait, please, hold on.”

He grits his teeth, because fuck, he’s probably just gone mad. It’s probably Joly, running after him, holding whatever the fuck he forgot at the bakery this time, but-

But he turns, anyways.

And-

Fuck, and-

Fuck, and there, there in the too-bright, too-hot sunlight, is Apollo. Enjolras. François-Marie Enjolras, the journalist. 

“Apollo,” Grantaire breathes.

He comes to a halt in front of Grantaire, clutching at his side like he’s got a stitch. “Grantaire,” he says again.

“What-”

“You didn’t wait,” says Enjolras. He’s still short for breath--he must have been sprinting. “You-”

Grantaire shakes his head to clear it. “I didn’t- I didn’t think you were coming.”

“I didn’t mean to be late,” Enjolras says, and he sounds strange. Pleading, maybe. “The metro was delayed, a power problem, I meant to be there, honest, Grantaire, I-” he takes a step forward. “I really didn’t mean to be late.”

Grantaire can’t breathe, but he does his best to choke out, “It’s okay.” He doesn’t understand why- why-

He is not the sort of person who is supposed to be chased after. This isn’t-

“Grantaire?”

“Why are you here?” He didn’t mean to ask it, really, but he has.

Enjolras’s face falls. “Did- Did you not want-”

Grantaire scrubs a hand through his hair. “Of course I fucking _wanted_ ,” he says, and his voice cracks, but that’s the least of his problems. “God, Enjolras, of course I fucking _wanted_ , I just- I don’t understand why-”

Why Enjolras came back in the first place. Why he ran after Grantaire like they’re in a fucking romcom. Why he’s here. Any of it. All of it.

“I wanted to ask you if you wanted to get lunch with me,” Enjolras says, but that doesn’t _explain_ anything.

“ _Why_ ?” Grantaire presses, pleads. He just needs to- to understand. He needs _Enjolras_ to understand that Grantaire is nothing special, nothing worth running after, only-

“Oh,” Enjolras says, like he’s realized something, only he doesn’t pull away, so Grantaire doesn’t know what it could be. “I mean, mostly because I-” he takes a step forward. (Grantaire just barely restrains himself from taking a step back, just on impulse. From leaning in, too, also on impulse.) “I-” he reaches out, maybe for Grantaire’s hand, or something. “May I?”

Grantaire doesn’t know what he’s asking for, but he can’t imagine ever not wanting anything even remotely to do with Enjolras. He nods.

And Enjolras, like it’s easy, like it’s _simple_ , takes his hands and leans in and kisses him. Right on the cheek, erring dangerously close to his lips.

Grantaire chokes at the contact. His knees, suddenly, feel dangerously weak. Enjolras moves to pull his hands away, but Grantaire cannot seem to release his grip.

Surely, surely, he cannot mean-

“Like that, okay?” Enjolras says, and he’s still fucking _close_ , and he’s so fucking stunning it makes Grantaire’s chest tight. “You know?” And-

Grantaire is a simple man. Really, he is. He cannot be expected to- to resist-

“Apollo,” he breathes, and he kisses him. 

Enjolras does not push him away. He does not rebuke him. Instead, he makes a pleased noise, deep in his chest, and drops one of Grantaire’s hands to drape an arm around the back of Grantaire’s neck, and he kisses back. Fuck, does he kiss back.

He kisses Grantaire deep and warm, like they’re not standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Like it’s not July, and too hot to be this close to anyone at all. Grantaire fumbles to keep up, fumbles to bring his hand, newly liberated, to rest against Enjolras’s cheek, to feel soft skin against his palm and golden fucking curls tumbling about his fingers.

A wounded noise rises in Grantaire’s throat, but Enjolras does nothing but to pull him in closer. Grantaire never wants to be anywhere else ever again, anywhere but pulled in close and held and kissed by this wonderful fucking man. He-

Someone bumps into them where they stand, brushes past with a muttered curse. 

They break apart. Grantaire is gaping, gasping for breath. His hand is still on Enjolras’s cheek, and he’s not sure, but he thinks Enjolras leans into it, a little. He’s smiling.

“Oh,” says Grantaire, ever-eloquent.

“Yeah,” says Enjolras, and he looks nervous, despite it all. Despite himself. “So. Um. Come to lunch with me?”

Grantaire cannot seem to stop himself from twisting a curl around his finger. He wants to kiss Enjolras again. He wants to be that close again. He wants-

Enjolras’s smile has dropped, a little. 

Grantaire realizes with a jolt that he has probably been taking far too long to respond. Trust him to fucking mess this up already, but- “Yes,” he manages. “Yes, please, let’s- let’s. Let’s get lunch.”

Enjolras fucking _beams_ . (Grantaire itches for a canvas and his fucking paints.) “Cool,” he says, and he squeezes Grantaire’s hand. “Yeah, cool, good. Awesome.” And he steps away, and Grantaire mourns the loss of contact in advance, but all Enjolras does is slide a hand down to link arms with him, inconvenient on the sidewalk but warm and _good_.

He starts walking. Grantaire stumbles after him.

“I know this really good Vietnamese place,” Enjolras says, and he’s still fucking smiling. “Do you like phở?”

Grantaire lets Enjolras guide him along--he cannot tear his gaze from Enjolras’s face. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I like it.”

“Good,” says Enjolras, and Grantaire can only agree.

It is good.

It is really, really fucking good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done! hooray! this got stupid long and i sincerely thank all of u who actually read all of it
> 
> i am a firm believer in Let Grantaire Have Friends Who Love Him
> 
> YES it is important that Enjolras has the most annoyingly aristocratic name. YES he hates it. NO i will not give him a different one.

**Author's Note:**

> grantaire: no criminals are allowed in the bakery. Sorry.  
> enjolras:  
> grantaire: OK I will make an exception because he looks very polite*
> 
> *beautiful enough to deactivate two of my three extant brain cells
> 
> i have a tumblr now! i won't post very much, but feel free to contact me! request stuff! yell at me for shit i write! say hi! stay updated! https://dannypuro.tumblr.com/


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